"She's still mad at me," Henry muttered. "I had a date with her the
night I----" He hushed and stared moodily into his glass. "I wonder if
she's married."
"She is," I informed him, "and the young she has produced number
four." I went so far as to prompt his mind to thought. "She holds no
recollection of that engagement. She is agitated by another memory,
more vivid, one stirring emotions of repugnance toward you. It is
connected with the world war."
I should have been glad to start Henry talking about that war. He and
I, as well as any others who cared to tune in on it with the rezcor
vibration selectors, witnessed much of that insane mass murder. Memory
vibrations coming in now were faint. Awakening Henry's would help
collect others, of course. But he would not talk much.
"I can't use your damned scryer!" he growled.
He fell to musing. "It might have all been different if I hadn't let
that infernal ship get too far out and sail away."
He broke off to stare at a dapper male who approached, swinging one leg
stiffly out from his body as he walked. Ahead of him stalked a large
dog, held in by a cord formed of the treated skin of some animal.
"Why, there's Todd Van Horne!" Henry exclaimed happily. "He'll be glad
to see me!"
* * * * *
I had learned from Henry's tireless repetitions, every detail, the
most intimate and the most trivial, concerning Todd Van Horne and his
family. He, like Henry, had grown up in this village. But Van Horne,
with several generations of wealth behind him, had cultivated pride and
reasoned largely from it. It was the boast of his family that a Van
Horne had fought in every war their country had waged. This Todd set
in to raise, and equip at his own expense, a company to engage in the
world war. He and Henry had been close friends in their early school
days. An older Van Horne had loaned Henry money to enter college. Todd
planned that his old friend should be first lieutenant in his volunteer
company. Todd, of course, was to be captain. But the edict of the
Government that every able-bodied male should enlist ended this plan.
Thereupon young Van Horne proposed to bear the expenses of both to a
station where officers were prepared. Henry launched forth upon his
catastrophic flight the night before he and Van Horne were to depart
for this depot of training.
My interest, however, was greater in that four-footed companion of Van
Horne's. It manifested senses far keener than those of its master.
The G-ray was no protection against them. It glared toward the chair
I occupied, the hairs about its neck bristling. It showed its teeth,
growling with the fury only fear can inspire.
I turned my full face upon it. It dragged back against its
leading-cord, wrapping it about Van Horne's legs, whimpering in abject
terror.
Meanwhile Henry was capering before Van Horne, calling loudly, "Todd!
Todd! Don't you know me, Todd? I'm Hank Sanborn!"
Van Horne, busy untangling himself, paid no attention until Henry
announced his name. Recognition flamed in his eyes. He loosed the dog.
The animal staggered away, trembling so it could hardly stand. Then it
gained control of its legs and fled.
Henry advanced toward Van Horne, hands outstretched.
"Don't you know me, Todd?" he kept repeating. "Aren't you glad to see
me?"
"Yes, I know you now," Van Horne said in staccato syllables indicating
extreme disgust. "And I'm damned glad to see you." He moved forward a
step, his stiff leg swinging almost straight out. "You yellow sneak!
You--coward! I've waited eighteen years to do--this!"
He thrust his face forward level with Henry's and spat square into
Henry's countenance.
Henry sank back into his chair as if he had been struck, wiping his
face and uttering little whimpering sounds. Van Horne strode away
holding himself rigidly erect, his stiff leg swinging wide with every
step. In the doorway of the shop the waiter stood gaping, his jaw
sagging loosely. The proprietor, behind him, stared across his shoulder.
"Can't you understand?" I prompted. "You left the night before you were
to go with Van Horne to become an officer."
It was interesting to note Henry's mental processes. Nerve impulses
fought desperately against the clear logic of those two encounters.
Feeble vibrations in the gray cortex pictured dimly the inevitable
conclusion from which a rational and perhaps successful course of
conduct might have been planned. But all the white matter in his skull
and spine throbbed with that weird emotion, hope. Hope directed his
next step.
"If I could only find out what it's all about," he said uncertainly.
Then, with mounting assurance, "I know where I can find out. I'll fix
'em. They're going to be sorry they treated me like that."
He arose and tossed a coin to the waiter.
"There's a man across the street that can put me wise," he said. "I
noticed his sign still there when we first came up. Want to go with me?"
* * * * *
I glided beside him across the vehicle thoroughfare, restraining his
impetuosity by reaching up and laying hold upon his arm with a grasping
hand. He entered a dingy place within which sat a male in an apron made
of the dressed hide of some beast. He held a shoe in his lap, at which
he tapped with a hammer, driving into it slivers of metal, which from
time to time he took from his mouth. From the bottom of his face grew a
mass of long white hair. Bare skin alone covered his skull. Before his
eyes he wore dirty round bits of glass fastened into a metal frame that
hooked behind his ears.
This monster looked up as we entered, peering over the bits of glass
that distorted his eyes. But instead of speaking he spewed from his
mouth a thick brown stream into a box on the floor beside him, filled
with the dust of wood.
"I want to ask you a question," Henry said when this strange greeting
had been completed. "Do you remember Hank Sanborn?"
The monster, with great deliberation, put away the hammer and laid
aside the shoe. He took off the framed glass and wiped each piece
with a dirty cloth he drew from a carrier sewed into the rear of his
bifurcated nether garment. He spat again into the wood-dust box and
spoke.
"Hank Sanborn? Why, yes. He was the chap that was always fooling with
mechanical toys and gadgets he got up. Yes, sir, I sure remember that
dirty yellow-bellied rat."
"Yellow-bellied rat!" Henry's protest was a puling wail. "What do you
mean?"
"I mean yellow-bellied rat, that's what I mean."
The monster spat again. It is unbelievable how much emotion he put into
that disgusting gesture. It was as if he had bitten into Henry Sanborn,
found the taste of him nauseating, and spewed it out.
"He was smart. I got to allow him that. But he was a coward or a
traitor. Maybe he was both. He gave out that he was inventing some sort
of airy-plane to whip the Germans. Lick 'em in a month. Bosh! Said the
thing was locked up in the barn on the little farm his pa left him. We
broke in after he run away, and there warn't nothing there but some
wheel tracks. He made out like he was all het up to go to the officer's
training-camp with Todd Van Horne. Run away the night before him and
Todd was to go the next morning. Todd's wearing a cork leg place of the
one he left in France. Hank Sanborn!" The monster's look grew fierce.
"If Hank Sanborn ever comes back to this man's town, he better not let
himself be known; and if you're any friend of his, you'll tell him so."
* * * * *
Henry followed me dejectedly back to the drinking-place. The vessel
of yellow liquid, the foam dead, sat still upon the table. The waiter
came forward hesitatingly. For his benefit I dropped into my own
speech, keeping my voice down to a register I knew his untrained ears
would not detect. As Henry replied in the same language, the waiter's
eyes dilated. He hurried back inside the hut. In a moment he returned
with the proprietor. The two stood in the doorway staring at Henry,
increasing uneasiness mingling with the look of understanding dawning
upon their countenances.
"I knew so many people," Henry grieved. "Everybody liked me, too.
They'd be falling down and worshipping me if they only knew. But I
can't get anybody to listen to me."
"A female," I prompted, for the time had come to bring on the crisis
of this comedy. "One who liked you well. One with whom you might have
mated."
"Why, sure! Anna Allison! Her father was head physician at the insane
hospital just outside of town. Likely she's married, but Anna will
listen to me. She'll convince the rest. Her father will help if he's
still alive. I'll telephone her. There's a booth over there!"
He rose and moved toward a large, glassed-in box that housed a distance
speaker. This telephone, as it is called, is a crude affair, too bulky
to be carried on the person, demanding a third individual to connect
the two who desire to converse across space.
I had been disregarding the thoughts of the other two, so I was not
altogether prepared for the aid they rendered in bringing about what
I had planned to use Henry to accomplish. Before Henry advanced three
strides, the waiter, to whom the proprietor had been talking with
growing excitement, popped into the box. He pulled shut the sound-proof
door and went through the complicated process of securing connection
with the person to whom he wished to impart his agitating information.
After a sentence or two he came out.
"Will you call the insane asylum?" Henry asked.
The man's eyes seemed about to burst from their sockets. He stood
gurgling until the proprietor thrust him aside.
"I'll call them for you," the proprietor said soothingly, turning his
head toward the waiter and slowly closing one eye, then opening it
again. He smiled at Henry, then went inside the box and closed the door.
Henry, facing me, did not notice that the man kept the connecting lever
down while going through the motions of talking. He came out smiling
more effusively.
"They're sure glad you're here, mister," he said. "They're going to
send in a nice car for you. They're real anxious to have you come out
there and talk to them. You see," he hastened to add as Henry's face
showed doubt, "Frank--he's the waiter, you know--he heard you tell Mr.
Van Horne who you was, so I told 'em. They're sure proud you're here."
"You see!" Henry's countenance writhed with exultation as he addressed
me in my own language. "I told you I'd find somebody! You couldn't have
done a thing. You don't know how the minds of my people work."
Behind Henry's back the waiter and the proprietor tapped their skulls
and smiled.