and better off dead. But never mind me. My mind is still alive. It still
thinks. I wish it didn't. I wish it crawled around like my body. But
seeing that it does, talk to me as if it were a mind belonging to somebody
else and not to the insufferable Winkelberg."

I grew suspicious finally. I began to think there was something vitally
spurious about this whole Winkelberg business. And I said to myself: "The
man's a downright fake. If anybody were as pathetic and impossible and
useless as this Winkelberg is he would shoot himself. Winkelberg doesn't
shoot himself. So he becomes illogical. Unreal."

* * * * *

A woman I know belongs to the type that becomes charitable around
Christmas time. She makes a glowing pretense of aiding the poor. As a
matter of fact, she really does aid them, although she regards the poor as
a sort of social and spiritual asset. They afford her the double
opportunity of appearing in the eyes of her neighbors as a magnanimous
soul and of doing something which reflects great credit upon her
character. But, anyway, she "does good," and we'll let it go at that.

I told this woman about Winkelberg. I became poignant and moving on the
subject of Winkelberg's misfortunes, his trials, sufferings and, above
all, his Spartan stoicism. It pleased me to do this. I felt that I was
making some amends and that the thing reflected credit upon my character.

So she went to the room on the South Side where Winkelberg sleeps. And
they told her there that Winkelberg was dead. He had died last week. She
was upset when she told me about it. She had come too late. She might have
saved him.