I let fly. "For the record, I want my pants. I'm certainly no patient in this morgue, and I'm not going to be treated like one, so whatever you or anyone else has got to say to me is not going to be while I'm as bare as a baby. My mind's made up," and I scrunched together ungracefully on the little space that remained on my end of the cot and pulled the sheet over my head. Kid stuff, and we both knew it. He didn't say anything, although I could feel his eyes boring through the flimsy sheet, and I lay there until I felt the springs creak as he got up and I could hear his footsteps retreating. When he came back with my clothes over his arm I was sitting up. While I was dressing he tried to talk to me, but I would have none of it. When I was dressed I said, "Now, you were saying--?" I drew a long speculative stare. "Peter, what's eating you?" I told him. "I just got tired of being shoved around. With the physical exam over with you give me one reason why I should sit around in my bare hide. Am I a machine? My name's Miller, not the Patient in Cell Two." He thought he was being reasonable. "And you think you get results by knocking around people that are trying to help you?" "With some people, you do. I tried talking, and that didn't work. I got action my way, didn't I?" He sighed. "Action, yes. Do you know what Kellner said?" "Not interested. Whatever he's got to say to me is going to have a please in front and a thank you after." Wearily, "Peter, must you always act like a child?" "No, I don't," I blazed at him. "But I'm damn well going to. I'm free, white and a citizen, and I'm going to be treated like one, and not a side-show freak!" "Now, now," he soothed. "Doctor Kellner is a very famous and a very busy man. He might not have realized--" "Realize your hat! He's so used to living in the clouds he thinks the world is one big moron. Well, I may be one, but no one is going to tell me I am!" "I see your point," and he stood up. "But you try to be a little more cooperative. I'll see Kellner now," and he started out. "Cooperative?" I bellowed at his back. "What do you think I've been doing? What do you--" * * * * * He must have read the riot act. When they took me in to Kellner and his crew it was "please, Mr. Miller" and "thank you, Mr. Miller." The place didn't seem so cold and bare so long as I had my pants. I didn't see Whom and his van Dyke, but I hoped it was the tile floor and not me that gave him the concussion.