The Guest of Honour
Part One
The doctor shut and locked his desk drawer upon his memorandum book with his right hand, and extended the left to his friend Manning Verrill, with the remark:
“Well, Manning, how are you?”
“If I were well, Henry,” answered Verrill gravely, “I would not be here.”
The doctor leaned back in his deep leather chair, and having carefully adjusted his glasses, tilted back his head, and looked at Verrill from beneath them. He waited for him to continue.
“It’s my nerves—I suppose,” began Verrill. “Henry,” he declared suddenly leaning forward, “Henry, I’m scared; that’s what’s the matter with me—I’m scared.”
“Scared,” echoed the doctor, “What nonsense! What of?”
“Scared of death, Henry,” broke out Verrill, “scared blue!”
“It is your nerves,” murmured the doctor. “You need travel and a bromide, my boy. There’s nothing the matter with you. Why, you’re good for another forty years,—yes, or even for another fifty years. You’re sound as a nut. You, to talk about death!”
“I’ve seen thirty—twenty-nine I should say, twenty-nine of my best friends go.”
The doctor looked puzzled a moment; then—“Oh! you mean that club of yours,” said he.
“Yes,” said Verrill, “Great heavens! to think that I should be the last man after all—well, one of us had to be the last. And that’s where the trouble is, Henry. It’s been growing on me for the last two years—ever since Curtice died. He was the twenty-sixth. And he died only a month before the Annual Dinner. Arnold, Brill, Steve—Steve Sharrett, you know, and I—just the four,—were left then; and we sat down to that big table alone; and when we came to the toast of ‘The Absent Ones’... Well, Henry, we were pretty solemn before we got through. And we knew that the choice of the last man,—who would face those thirty-one empty covers and open the bottle of wine that we all set aside at our first dinner, and drink ‘The Absent Ones,’—was narrowing down pretty fine.
“Next year there were only Arnold and Steve, and myself left. Brill—well you know all about his death. The three of us got through dinner somehow. The year after that we were still three, and even the year after that. Then poor old Steve went down with the Dreibund in the bay of Biscay, and four months afterward Arnold and I sat down to the table at the Annual, alone. I’m not going to forget that evening in a hurry. Why, Henry—oh! never mind. Then—”
“Well,” prompted the doctor as his friend paused:
“Arnold died three months ago. And the day of our Annual—I mean my—the club’s,” Verrill changed his position. “The date of the dinner, the Annual Dinner, is next month, and I’m the only one left.”
“And, of course, you’ll not go,” declared the doctor.
“Oh, yes,” said Verrill. “Yes, I will go, of course. But—” He shook his head with a long sigh. “When the Last Man Club was organised,” he went on, “in ’68, we were all more or less young. It was a great idea, at least I felt that way about it, but I didn’t believe that thirty young men would persist in anything—of that sort very long. But no member of the club died for the first five years, and the club met every year and had its dinner without much thought of—of consequences, and of the inevitable. We met just to be sociable.”
“Hold on,” interrupted the doctor, “you are speaking now of thirty. A while ago you said thirty-one.”
“Yes, I know,” assented Verrill, “There were thirty in the club, but we always placed an extra cover—for—for the Guest of Honour.”
The doctor made a movement of impatience. Then in a moment, “Well,” he said, resignedly, “go on.”
“That’s about the essentials,” answered Verrill. “The first death was in ’73. And from that year on the vacant places at the table have steadily increased. Little by little the original bravado of the thing dropped out of it all for me; and of late years—well I have told you how it is. I’ve seen so many of them die, and die so fast, so regularly—one a year you might say,—that I’ve kept saying ‘who next, who next, who’s to go this year?’... And as they went, one by one, and still I was left... I tell you, Henry, the suspense was,... the suspense is... You see I’m the last now, and ever since Curtice died, I’ve felt this thing weighing on me. By God, Henry, I’m afraid; I’m afraid of Death! It’s horrible! It’s as though I were on the list of ’condemned’ and were listening to hear my name called every minute.”
“Well, so are all of us, if you come to that,” observed the doctor.
“Oh, I know, I know,” cried Verrill, “it is morbid and all that. But that don’t help me any. Can you imagine me one month from to-morrow night. Think now. I’m alone, absolutely, and there is the long empty table, with the thirty places set, and the extra place, and those places are where all my old friends used to sit. And at twelve I get up and give first ‘The Absent Ones,’ and then ‘The Guest of the Evening.’ I gave those toasts last year, but there were two of us, then, and the year before there were three. But ever since Curtice died and we were narrowed down to four, this thing has been weighing on me—this idea of death, and I’ve conceived a horror of it—a—a dread. And now I am the last. I had no idea this would ever happen to me; or if it did, that it would be like this. I’m shaken, Henry, shaken. I’ve not slept for three nights. So I’ve come to you. You must help me.”
“So I will, by advising you. You give up the idiocy. Cut out the dinner this year; yes, and for always.”
“You don’t understand,” replied Verrill, calmly. “It is impossible. I could not keep away. I must be there.”
“But it’s simple lunacy,” expostulated the doctor. “Man, you’ve worked upon your nerves over this fool club and dinner, till I won’t be responsible for you if you carry out this notion. Come, promise me you will take the train for, say Florida, tomorrow, and I’ll give you stuff that will make you sleep. St. Augustine is heaven at this time of year, and I hear the tarpon have come in. Shall—”
Verrill shook his head.
“You don’t understand,” he repeated. “You simply don’t understand. No, I shall go to the dinner. But of course I’m—I’m nervous—a little. Did I say I was scared? I didn’t mean that. Oh, I’m all right; I just want you to prescribe for me, something for the nerves. Henry, death is a terrible thing,—to see ’em all struck down, twenty-nine of ’em—splendid boys. Henry, I’m not a coward. There’s a difference between cowardice and fear. For hours last night I was trying to work it out. Cowardice—that’s just turning tail and running; but I shall go through that Annual Dinner, and that’s ordeal enough, believe me. But fear,—it’s just death in the abstract that unmans me. That’s the thing to fear. To think that we all go along living and working and fussing from day to day, when we know that this great Monster, this Horror, is walking up and down the streets, and that sooner or later he’ll catch us,—that we can’t escape. Isn’t it the greatest curse in the world! We’re so used to it we don’t realise the Thing. But suppose one could eliminate the Monster altogether. Then we’d realise how sweet life was, and we’d look back at the old days with horror—just as I do now.”
“Oh, but this is rubbish,” cried the doctor, “simple drivel. Manning, I’m ashamed of you. I’ll prescribe for you, I suppose I’ve got to. But a good rough fishing-and-hunting-trip would do more for you than a gallon of drugs. If you won’t go to Florida, get out of town, if it’s only over Sunday. Here’s your prescription, and do take a Friday-to-Monday trip. Tramp in the woods, get tired, and don’t go to that dinner!”
“You don’t understand,” repeated Verrill, as the two stood up. He put the prescription into his pocket-book. “You don’t understand. I couldn’t keep away. It’s a duty, and besides—well I couldn’t make you see. Good-by. This stuff will make me sleep, eh? And do my nerves good, too, you say? I see. I’ll come back to you if it don’t work. Good-by again. This door, is it? Not through the waiting-room, eh? Yes, I remember.... Henry, did you ever—did you ever face death yourself—I mean—”
“Nonsense, nonsense, nonsense,” cried the doctor. But Verrill persisted. His back to the closed door, he continued:
“I did. I faced death once,—so you see I should know. It was when I was a lad of twenty. My father had a line of New Orleans packets and I often used to make the trip as super-cargo. One October day we were caught in the equinox off Hatteras, and before we knew it we were wondering if she would last another half-hour. Along in the afternoon there came a sea aboard, and caught me unawares. I lost my hold and felt myself going, going.... I was sure for ten seconds that it was the end,—and I saw death then, face to face!
“And I’ve never forgotten it. I’ve only to shut my eyes to see it all, hear it all—the naked spars rocking against the grey-blue of the sky, the wrench and creak of the ship, the threshing of rope ends, the wilderness of pale-green water, the sound of rain and scud.... No, no, I’ll not forget it. And death was a horrid specter in that glimpse I got of him. I—I don’t care to see him again. Well, good-by once more.”
“Good-by, Manning, and believe me, this is all hypochondria. Go and catch fish. Go shoot something, and in twenty-four hours you’ll believe there’s no such thing as death.”
The door closed. Verrill was gone.