Chapter XXXI

"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?"

"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!"