He began to talk about his youth, about his days as a medical student at Wooten Institute in New Orleans. I couldn't follow all that stuff and I tuned him out as best I could. He ended the long account by saying that Dr. Wooten "invented clamps."

"Medical clamps?" I idly inquired.

"No, just clamps. He invented the clamp."

"I don't understand that. What kind of clamp are you talking about?"

"Clamps! Clamps! That you hold two things together with! Can't you understand plain English?"

"Are you saying this man made the first clamp?"

"He got a patent on it. He invented the clamp."

"No, he didn't."

"Then who did?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know. And you don't know Smitty Wooten either, but you want to tell me he didn't invent the clamp."

"He may have invented some special kind of clamp but he didn't invent the clamp. The principle of the clamp was probably known to the Sumerians. You can't go around saying this fellow from Louisiana invented the clamp."

"He was the finest diagnostician of our time. I suppose you deny that too."

"That's something else."

"No, go ahead. Attack him all you please. He's dead now and can't defend himself. Call him a liar and a bum. It's great sport for people who sit on the sidelines of life."

—Charles Portis, The Dog of the South