"True that policemen take money in exchange for protection? True that
they practise blackmail and extortion? Of course it's true. Whenever a
big temptation appears loose in a city half the people who get a look at
it trip and fall. Oh, I'd like to reform this city, Miss Barbara--and
this country. I'd like to be dictator for six months."
"Who wouldn't?" said Barbara. "But what would you do? Where would you
begin?"
"I should be drastic at first," said the legless man, "and kind later.
I'd begin," he went on, his eyes smiling, "with a general massacre of
incompetents--old men with too little money, young men with too
much--old maids, aliens, incurables, the races that are too clever to
work, the races that are too stupid, habitual drunkards, spreaders of
disease, the women who abolished the canteen, the women who wear
aigrettes. After that I should destroy all possibilities of graft."
"How?" asked Barbara.
"Why," said he, "the simplest way in the world--legalize the business
that now pays for protection. There would be no more of them than there
are now, and they could be regulated and kept to confined limits of
cities. Don't blame the police for graft: blame all who believe that
human nature can be abolished by law. But," and this time his whole face
smiled, "I shall never be dictator. The thing to do is to start a new
country, and make no mistakes."
And he proceeded, sometimes seriously but for the most part whimsically,
to outline his model republic, while Barbara worked and listened,
sometimes with amusement, sometimes with a sense of being uplifted and
thrilled by the man's plausible originality. Since she had but the
vaguest recollection of history, and none whatever of economics, it was
easy for the man to play the constructive statesman. Nor were his
schemes always foolish and illogical, since the book of human nature had
been always in his library, and of all its volumes had been most
often read.
"Ah!" said the legless man at last, "if I were younger, and whole!"
Whenever he referred to his maimed condition Barbara, to whom it was no
longer physically shocking, was uncomfortable and distressed, changing
the subject as swiftly as might be. But now, stopping her work short
off, her hands hanging at her sides, she began to speak of the matter.
"I suppose," she said, "it's almost life and death to you--sometimes,
that you'd give almost anything, take any chance to be--the way you were
meant to be. My father believes that some day people can have anything
that they've lost restored--a hand or an arm. He's made experiments
along those lines ever since he made his mistake with you, and it all
works out beautifully with monkeys and dogs and guinea-pigs and
rabbits. Just now he is in Colorado to try it on a man. There's a man
out there in jail for life, who has a brother that lost his right hand
in some machinery. The well brother has offered to let father cut off
his hand, and graft it on the maimed brother's wrist. I've just had a
letter--it's been done. He thinks it's all right, but he can't be sure
yet. Please don't say anything about it because--well, because people
are still queer about these things. In the old days people burned the
best doctors, and now they want to lynch vivisectors and almost anybody
who's really trying to make health more or less contagious."
"Do you believe I could be made whole?" exclaimed Blizzard, his eyes
glittering as with a sudden hope. "My God! Even if they weren't much use
to me, I'd give my soul to look like a real man--my soul! Do you know
what I'd rather do than anything in this whole world--just once? I'd
rather draw myself to my full height--just once--than be Napoleon
Bonaparte. If all the treasure in this city were mine to give, I'd give
it to walk the length of a city block on my own feet, looking down at
the people instead of always up--always up--until the leverage of your
eyes twists the back of your brain in everlasting torment."
"When my father comes back," said Barbara quietly, "talk to him. And if
only it can be done--why, you'll forgive us, won't you, for all the
suffering you've had and everything?"
[Illustration: She said in a small, surprised voice, "Why, it's
finished"]
"Yes, yes," he said quickly. "But it isn't true--it isn't possible. It
won't work. It's against experience."
"It is _possible_," said Barbara gently. "That's all I know. And even
if--even if it can't be done yet awhile, I thought it would comfort you
to think that some day--almost surely--"
"You are always thinking of my comfort," he cried. "In this pit that we
call life, you are an angel serene, blessed and blessing. Oh," he cried,
"what would you say if I stood before you on my own feet, and told
you--told you--" He broke off short and hung his head.
Barbara bit her lips and lifted her hands with a weary gesture to resume
work. But the bust of Blizzard was a live thing, and seeing anew the
strength and hellish beauty of it, suddenly and as if with the eyes of a
stranger, her heart seemed to leap into her throat, her whole body
relaxed once more, and she said in a small, surprised voice:
"Why, it's finished!"