"That is he! I recognise him. It is he who came to Ungdomland!"
They approached each other. She held out her hands to him; he was the
spouse designed to her by the mysterious voice.
Next day the marriage of the handsome Prince and the beautiful Princess
was pompously celebrated, and they departed together to the Land of
Youth, where they lived long and happily.
The two traitors were cast into the den of lions into which they had
caused their innocent brother to be thrown.
_The Queer Side of Things._
[Illustration: THE THINNER-OUT]
Reader, can you, by a violent effort of memory, recall the two spirits,
William and James, who engaged in these pages in several arguments
concerning the possibility of your, and my, existence? I know you have
had other things to think about lately--the possibility of obtaining,
either by exorbitant payment, diplomacy, or any means underhand or
otherwise, a supply of coals for the winter--the fate of Lobengula--the
chances of the Employers' Liability Bill--the state of our Navy. But if
you will for one moment compare the weight of these trivialities with
that of the question: "Is it, or is it not, possible for this Universe
to have ever existed?"--you will find the former group of subjects
vanish like an idle dream; while the VAST QUERY will instantly absorb
your whole attention.
_Then_ you will recollect that the more thoughtful, more logical, less
visionary spirit William conclusively proved the impossibility of our
existence.
Yet he was wrong. Very slight inquiries into evidence have since
convinced me that our Universe _does_ exist. It is difficult to credit,
in the face of William's logic: but I fear we _must_ believe it.
Very well--waiving the possibility of our _all_ being hypnotized
through all the ages (say by Adam, Rameses the Great, Mr. Stead, or
some other power having sway over human minds) into a belief of the
existence of the non-existent--we will, please, take it as carried that
we _do_ exist, and that even William is forced to admit it. Very good:
now let's get on.
"What do you think _now_?" asked James, a weak-minded scintillation of
triumph in his eye.
William was evidently seriously offended; facts which contradict
carefully-weighed logic, flawless in all other respects, are always
irritating to the thoughtful. Men of science will indorse this.
"Hurrm!" he said at last; "your Universe does exist--in a way; and
the globe you call 'Terra' does exist--in a way. But the highly
objectionable creatures on it don't seem too comfortable; in fact, a
more ridiculous, calamitous, disastrous, pitiful, gruesome, repulsive
muddle than they make of it I could not possibly conceive!"
"But they have _some_ reasonable qualities?" argued James.
"A few," said William. "Those taught them by the conduct of what
you call the lower animals. _I_ know what's principally wrong with
them--they _think_, and _do things_, too much."
"Well, they are, perhaps, too much given to thinking and doing
things. I admit that they make many mistakes, but I _do_ protest that
they _mean well_--that their theories are, as a whole, in the right
direction--that they have a solid, genuine admiration for good aims and
great deeds, and reward such merits when conspicuously shown by any
among them."
"Hum!" said William.
"Oh, come," said James; "you _must_ admit that humanity's rewards are,
as a rule, conferred on those who do the greatest services to humanity."
"From _my_ point of view, yes!" said William. "Let's have a game!" he
said, suddenly.
"A game?" said James, taken aback by such a proposition from the
cynical and severe William.
"Yes," said the latter. "Let us put this point of yours to the test.
Let you and me select, each, a specimen of humanity from among this
herd, each of us choosing the specimen which he deems most likely to
obtain the highest praises and rewards of humanity; let us choose
our specimens as babies, and watch them through their subsequent
careers--eh?"
"Very good," said James, confidently.
"Let's have a bet on it, like your humans do with insurance companies
about the length of their lives," said William. "I will bet you--let's
see--I'll bet you that comet against that little star over there in the
constellation like a saucepan. The comet's more showy, and apparently
better value; so that will please _you_ best: and you won't notice its
flimsiness as compared with the greater solidity of the little star."
"But what nonsense!" said James. "What in space would be the use of a
comet or a star to one of us? What could we do with it?"
"You could give yours," said William, in that nasty tone of his, "to
one of your humans. He would be delighted. It's exactly the kind of
thing they are always longing for."
Then they looked about among humanity.
"I've chosen my baby," said James. "Something has gone wrong with
another baby's feeding-bottle, and my baby is trying to put it right."
"Very curious!" said William. "The baby I had chosen is the very baby
whose feeding-bottle--(anachronism is nothing to _us_, James--we deal
with _all_ dates)--your baby is attempting to put right. While your
baby is so engaged, _my_ baby is damaging the tube of _your_ baby's
bottle, to the end that your baby may fail to get any nourishment
through it. That's the baby for _me_!"
James laughed in derision. "Well, if you think _your_ choice will merit
the praise of humanity----!" he began.
"Stop!" said William. "The words in our agreement were '_obtain_ the
praises of humanity.' We said nothing about _meriting_ them. I say my
choice will obtain them."
"Well, well," said James, "you needn't split hairs!"
"I'm not splitting hairs," replied William; "I am pointing out the
chasm between two mountains."
"But--confound it!" said James, impatient at his companion's want of
reason. "You don't mean to seriously tell me that you seriously believe
that humanity would seriously choose to reward those who injure rather
than those who benefit----?"
"Never mind what I believe. You'll see," said William. "See, our babies
are growing; they are little boys now. What's yours doing?"
"Mine," said James, triumphantly, "has found a dead bird, and is trying
to bring it to life."
"That is the bird which _my_ little boy has killed," said William.
James sniggered again. "You had better make another choice," he said.
"_Will_ you kindly mind your own business," said William, "and look
after your chance of that comet? You'd better be ordering a handsome
casket to present it to your baby in _when_ he has obtained the praises
of humanity. What's your baby up to now?"
[Illustration: "THAT'S THE BABY FOR ME!"]
"He has grown," replied James, gazing earthwards. "He is at school.
Another boy has been knocked down in the playground by a third boy ----"
"Yes--by _my_ boy," put in William.
[Illustration: "FOUND A DEAD BIRD."]
"And my boy is attending to his bruises and trying to ease the pain of
them."
"Just so," said William. "A most mistaken young person! I knew he
would--just the sort of thing he _would_ be up to!"
"At any rate, he is earning the gratitude of the victim," protested
James.
"The gratitude of victims," said the objectionable William, "is not
legal tender; it is not even a marketable article. Did you ever see
the gratitude of victims quoted in the share-lists of the newspapers
published by your precious humans? Have you ever seen it advertised
for in the columns of that periodical of theirs called _Exchange and
Mart_? You may have seen it advertised for sale there; but there were
no answers. Now look at _my_ boy, James--look at him! That's promise,
if you like! He's knocking down _all_ the other boys like ninepins."
"Your boy is a Bully," said James.
"Ah! you've discovered it, then? It has at last dawned upon you that I
am bound to win. My boy is a Bully. You may as well just hand over that
little star out of the saucepan at once, and save further trouble."
"What! _Do_ you mean to tell me," screamed James, rising on the
tips of his toes with indignation, "to tell me that a Bully is the
sort of person to obtain the highest praises and rewards of his
fellow-creatures?"
"I do," said William. "The sort, and the _only_ sort. I'll grant that
your beneficent person who does a lot of good to your humans may come
in for a good large amount of praises, and also even get a small amount
of solid rewards: but the fellow they really love is your Bully."
"How can they love him? Impossible!" said James.
"Then why do the confounded creatures act as though they did? You can
only judge of their sanity by their acts--and those disprove it. Let's
go on. What's my boy doing now?"
"He is playing with a lot of little toy soldiers," said James. "He is
knocking them over with toy cannon. Now he is constructing little toy
towns, and setting fire to them."
"And your boy?"
"Is picking up the little soldiers, and trying to bend them straight
and set them on their legs again."
"Ah! Always throwing away your chances of winning that comet by wasting
his time earning the gratitude of victims!" said the horrid William.
"And now they have both left school, and are studying. My boy is
practising sword-cuts, and reading about words of command, and linked
battalions and machine-guns."
[Illustration: "HE'S KNOCKING DOWN ALL THE OTHER BOYS LIKE NINEPINS."]
"And my boy is practising tying bandages, and reading about arteries,
and nerves, and compound fractures, and epidemics. My boy is fitting
himself as a Healer."
"And my boy," said William, "is fitting himself for a Slayer."
"You are either mad," said James, "or are indulging in a pastime which
is not your _forte_--a jest. You cannot seriously imagine that these
humans will actually prefer one who slays them!"
"I _know_ they will--it just tallies with their queer ways. They
profess to hold human life at the highest value! That's not humbug on
their parts, mind you--they are under the delusion that they do so
hold it. Life is to them an object of joy, and the absence of it one
of regret; as I told you once before, they delight in the filling up
of the waste places of their ball with human life. They don't consider
animal life as life.
"If an island is full of intelligent elephants, who hardly ever make
mistakes, and quiet, domesticated kangaroos, and contented rabbits,
these humans of yours say: 'What a pity it isn't inhabited--we ought
to people that desert!' They don't recognise the fact that it _is_
inhabited and _isn't_ a desert! They are delighted at the growing
crowds in their towns; and if they look down a lane and don't see
anyone in it, they drop a tear and think: 'It's very sad there should
be no human life in that lane.'
"And here comes in one of the queerest phases in the exceeding
queerness of these people of yours--all the while they are under the
impression that they consider the increase of humanity as of the
highest advantage, they have an unrecognised instinct which tells them
that things will be mightily uncomfortable for them when their ball
gets a little overfilled: and from this unrecognised instinct springs
their partiality to anyone who thins them out. The Thinner-Out is the
object of their very highest rewards----
"Ha! Look--look there, on that TERRA of yours. There's a great ship
about to be wrecked--yes, there it goes, crashing on the rocks. There
will be a wholesale bit of thinning-out there--no; see, one of your
humans, by the exercise of superhuman energy, and at infinite risk to
himself, is saving the whole lot of them. Every one of them is safe on
land now. They are crowding round their preserver----"
"Ha!" cried James. "Where are your precious cynical arguments _now_?
Look at their gratitude--look how they grasp his hand, and kiss it,
and----"
[Illustration: SLAYER AND HEALER.]
"Collect for him a sum amounting to nearly fifty pounds, and send him
a medal, and mention him in the principal newspapers--nearly half a
column in some!--and drop him," said William.
"Of course," he continued, "there are several kinds of
Thinners-Out--there's the one who spreads epidemics by travelling in
public conveyances when suffering from communicable ailments: they
don't reward him, because no particular effort is required for his
kind of work--a child could do it: but he is protected by the laws.
Who ever heard of anyone being visited by any heavier punishment than
the fine of a few coins for wilfully thinning-out humans in this way?
Nobody. Then there are two kinds of the class who go in for the most
lucrative method of thinning-out--War. There's the warrior who thins
out his fellow-creatures to gratify his own personal inclinations and
ambitions; and there's the warrior who is forced to thin them out by
the duty of defending his country against the former kind of warrior."
"Ah! and the latter's the kind of warrior his fellow humans will heap
the highest rewards upon," said James.
"Oh, _is_ he?" said William. "All right; for the sake of curiosity
let us just follow the career of a third boy--the little one that was
knocked down by _my_ boy, and tended by yours. What is _he_ at now?"
"Why, he is practising with a sword like your Bully; only he is
practising parries instead of cuts; and he is also reading about
words of command, and linked battalions, and machine-guns, and
fortifications. And I recollect, by the way, that he was lately playing
with a little toy town and trying to defend it."
"Just so," said William. "He'll do very well, mind you; but the other
kind of warrior--my Bully--will distance him in rewards by leagues.
Halloa!--there's a booming of cannon, and a noise of screaming. What's
doing?"
"It's your Bully. He's an adult human now; and he's besieging a town;
now he has taken it and set it on fire, and put the inhabitants to the
sword."
"That's the way to begin, James! If you want to win the love and
respect of those humans of yours, strike terror into them at the start.
You see, those you spare feel so proud of their own cleverness in being
spared, and so relieved about it, that they are in the best of humours;
and, looking about for somebody on whom to expend their good humour,
they naturally fix on the figure that catches their eye first; and
that, of course, is the figure of the Thinner-Out. See?"
"Your beastly baby is taking more towns, and kindly accepting ransoms
for abstaining from destroying what never was his."
"Yes; and from a corner of the earth comes out the other boy who
studied war; and he stands in front of the one-half of the earth where
he lives, to prevent the Bully attacking it; and now there's a great
battle--another--another--and another, and my baby is beaten back from
one-half of that globe of yours, and the other baby stands in the
middle of that half and crows; and my baby, the Bully, has to confine
his attention to the half he has overrun and conquered, while a wild,
delirious, long-pent-up shout of heartfelt relief comes up from the
humans on the defended half. Where's that baby of yours--the doctor?"
"There he is," said James; "there he is--picking up the damaged
soldiers and trying to bend them straight and set them on their legs
again; checking epidemics and diseases arising from the privations
and calamities of war, assuaging suffering, and curing and comforting
thousands. You'll lose your comet, William--come, confess it!"
"Bah!" said William. "You don't know much of the ways of this pet fancy
of yours, the inhabitants of that globule. See--they are about to show
their gratitude to our three babies by conferring rewards----"
"They're looking towards my baby, the Healer!" shouted James, excitedly.
Even William was interested out of his wonted calm by the situation.
"They're handing him something done up in paper. What is it?" he
shouted.
"A baronetcy--there!" shouted James. "And now they're turning to the
Thinner-Out who defended one-half of the world! See--what's that they
hand to him?"
"A dukedom!" shouted William. "Wait a bit--wait a bit--don't crowd on
to my toes--you can see where you are. Now--they're turning towards----"
"Your Bully, the Champion Thinner-Out. They're handing him--don't
shove----"
"Well--what?" screamed William.
"An Imperial Crown!" gasped James.
* * * * *
Reader, if you do not believe in William's theory, search your "Burke"
for a physician qualified to sit in the House of Lords.