"All right, Senator," the young red-headed doctor said. "You say you
want it straight--that's how you're going to get it." Moments before,
Dr. Moss had been laughing. Now he wasn't laughing. "Six months, at
the outside. Nine, if you went to bed tomorrow, retired from the
Senate, and lived on tea and crackers. But where I'm sitting I
wouldn't bet a plugged nickel that you'll be alive a month from now.
If you think I'm joking, you just try to squeeze a bet out of me."
Senator Dan Fowler took the black cigar from his mouth, stared at the
chewed-up end for a moment, and put it back in again. He had had
something exceedingly witty all ready to say at this point in the
examination; now it didn't seem to be too funny. If Moss had been a
mealy-mouthed quack like the last Doc he had seen, okay. But Moss
wasn't. Moss was obviously not impressed by the old man sitting across
the desk from him, a fact which made Dan Fowler just a trifle uneasy.
And Moss knew his turnips.