by Philip Wylie
"Let me alone. Don't you think I have any feelings? Don't you think I've been worrying and wondering and hoping? Don't you think I've been getting up every morning at seven o'clock to get the Record and see if there's any sign of backbone in it or even a rotten little paragraph with Henry’s name over it?
"Don't you think that when I read about the bridge fight and found out that the dirt about me was done by Voorhees, I could have cheered? And then--nothing more. They practically took it back the next day. And the bonds are on the market. Don't you think I care?"
Elihu Whitney looked at Collins and nodded toward the door.
Marian caught the gesture and sniffled.
"Don't go on my account, Tom."
"I have to slide along anyway. Appointment."
"Well--"
"Thank you for calling, Collins," the lawyer said. "I'm afraid we can do nothing."
Collins walked slowly to the hotel. He found Henry closeted with an alert, elderly-man.
Henry was obviously changed. He jumped up when Collins came into the room.
"Mr. Collins, this is Mr. McCobb. You recognize the name?"
"I certainly do. I'm delighted."
McCobb shook hands and Collins was astonished at his grip. "I've just been having a little talk with Henry."
"Yes."
"He's different, Mr. Collins. The city doesn't seem to agree with him."
"He's been working hard."
Henry interrupted. "McCobb's been in Washington. He has arranged for the United States to claim Stone Island."
"That's fine," Collins said politely.
"Isn't it!" Henry smiled happily. "The State Department has agreed to do it. And the Dunson Line is going to stop there twice a year--on the Batavia-Good Hope Route."
"Well!"
"McCobb's going back!"
The Scotchman nodded and smiled. "I can't stand the town, Mr. Collins. Either I'm too old for it, or else I've missed too much in between. The noise keeps me awake and the people here irritate me. I go bumping along the sidewalk and I get vexed with everyone that touches me. So I decided to go back. I'm taking a ship of my own and about a hundred people."
Collins shook his head. "Going to colonize it, eh?"
"Just that. We'll work the gold mines and the ledges where we found the jewels.
We'll develop those zebu-oxen into fine cattle."
"That's not all," Henry cut in. "Professor Adam Smythe of Harvard and his wife and Professor John Doyle of Yale are going to go with him."
"Fine!"
"You bet it's fine. They know more about old civilizations than any other two men alive. Good Lord, I'd love to go into my ruins with them. They wrote McCobb a letter about the work I did deciphering the language. They say the people must have come from Mu."
"Oh, yes," Collins said. He had a feeling of being out of place in the conversation.
"Mu."
"It's another continent that sank: They think they'll find a clue to the whole rise of man on Stone Island."
"That's very interesting."
There was a little pause.
McCobb looked fondly at Henry.
"I can hardly wait. I don't feel old any more. By God, if I go back there, Henry lad, I'll bet I live to be a hundred."
Henry laughed loudly. "A hundred and fifty, McCobb."
"It doesn't seem possible. Think--lad--"
"Old Mount McCobb sticking its rocky head out of the jungle--"
"Jack's Lake lying like a sapphire in the sun--"
"All snouty with crocodiles--"
"And those big birds flapping on the rocks--"
"The lathe going in the shop again--"
"And the storms that come with the monsoons--roaring over the bay, knocking the thatch off the roof, churning up the sea--"
"And the swimming net--"
"With shark fins sailing along outside--"
"And new goats. You'll have to name them Four-eyes and little Joe, too--"
' I'm taking bees with me this time. And a tractor. We'll have a farm on the pampas back there. And a power plant that I'm going to hitch to the waterfall on the side of the mountain. Just think of the old stockade all strung with electric lights--and a big searchlight to bring the boats in!"
"Don't say any more, McCobb. I'm so homesick I can hardly stand it."
Collins dangled his arm over the side of his chair. The door slammed.
McCobb leaped to his feet.
"Jack!".
"Mr. McCobb!"
The huge Negro and the diminutive Scotchman pumped each other's hands.
"Henry told me you were with him again."
"Yes, sir! Indeed I am. I'm the major-domo here."
"That's fine!"
"McCobb's' going back to the island, Jack," Henry said. "He's taking a lot of people. To live."
"Is that so?" A far-away look came into the Negro's eyes. He chuckled and then was still. He shook his head.
"Be just like going home, Mr. McCobb."
"Won't it, Jack?"
Henry laughed. "How'd you like to be cutting a zebu steak again, Jack? And planting seeds out there in the garden?"
"Boy!"
"Or catching one of those silver fish?"
"Boy-oh-boy. Remember the one that weighed a hundred and eighty-two pounds?"
McCobb nodded. "I can still hear the roar you let out when it struck, Jack."
"It's a grand place."
McCobb moved toward the door.
"I've got to get along. I'm having lunch with a fellow who knows how to get gold out of quartz."
"Great!" Henry said.
"See you again before I go."
"When are you leaving?"
"In two or three weeks."
"I'll be down to see you off," Henry said. "And if there's anything I can do for you, let me know."
Everyone shook hands.
McCobb left.
Henry sat in a chair thinking. At last he spoke.
"I can get him a radio set. A big sending set, with towers, so that he can keep in touch with everything."
"Mmmm," Collins murmured.
"And we can get the stories of what they find in the ruins for the Record."
The one-time reporter lifted his eyebrows in surprise.
The door opened again and McCobb reappeared. "I just wanted to say, Henry--
that if you ever get sick of the city--come out and see us."
"You bet I will!"
Chapter Fifteen: THE GUNMEN
HENRY was different after McCobb's visit. He moved through life with a vast abstraction. He made several trips to the ship McCobb had chartered for his voyage. He offered a dozen suggestions of great value for their equipment. He did not go to the Record Building at all.
Collins knew what was in his mind: Henry wanted to go back. But Collins held his peace.
A week passed.
The Record embarked upon a campaign for the election of Tim O'Donnell for Mayor. Henry was only dimly conscious of it until one night when he happened to be riding in the subway. He often rode underground--the novelty of the darkness and trains seemed to numb the struggling anxieties of his mind, and the faces of the people absorbed his interest.
Henry was standing in a vestibule with his back against the brake-wheel. Two men talked loudly almost under his chin. They were plain men, in thread-bare clothes.
Their collars were soiled and their shoulders stooped.
Henry scarcely realized that he was overhearing their conversation.
"Well," one of the men said, "I suppose they'll railroad O'Donnell into office."
"Sure they will."
"It's a shame."
"It's hell. I didn't register. I got so sick of voting on the beaten side that I quit voting. What the hell, I say."
"That's the way I feel. Last time I went to vote, there was a guy standing inside the booth. He came to the machine with me. 'I'll show you how to set it,' he says. 'I know how,' I answers. 'Oh, no, you don't--not that way,'
he says and when I try to change my ideas--or his ideas--he taps me in the ribs with his fist. There's a cop outside laughing at me. So I votes--against myself."
"It's a Crime."
"Sure it's a crime. Milk too high and all water. Rent a million miles in the air. The grocer tells me they're collecting from him every week. Jeest!"
"An' this O'Donnell. That Myra Milo is his girl. Goes everywhere with him--even where his wife is. It's a crime."
Henry's attention had increased with each word. When the train stopped, he walked slowly along the platform. He burned with dull anger. His paper was behind all that. O'Donnell was his candidate. He walked up the street.
It was--a crime."
He did not want to do anything about it. He did not want to enter into the dispute and muck. It wasn't his world. The afternoon was hot and breathless. Not his world. His head ached. His back ached. His eyes burned.
The faces of the two men--wan and weak--floated before his imagination. Let them rot in their own mess.
He went up in the elevator.
Collins sat listlessly, in his shirt sleeves, reading a magazine.
"Hello," he said. "Been down to the boat?"
"Yes."
"What's new?"
"Nothing."
Henry removed his coat. Let them suffer. He didn't invent the public. He leaned back.
He taps me in the ribs with his fist. There's a cop outside laughing at me.
Damnation.
Henry snatched the telephone.
Collins looked up. "What's the mission?"
"Get the Record. Mr. Stone calling Mr. Voorhees."
"Good afternoon. Mr. Stone. Delighted to hear your voice. Warm weather--"
Henry was tired. He wanted to make it short.
"Listen, Voorhees. I don't like O'Donnell. He's out."
"I'm afraid I don't understand."
Henry sighed. "Oh--hell! Listen, then. I'm going to campaign for Yates, I'm sick of O'Donnell and his gang."
"That's impossible, Mr. Stone."
"It isn't impossible. It's possible that if you don't carry out my orders there'll be someone who will in your place. That's possible."
A note Henry had never heard came in Voorhees' voice.
"Mr. Stone, I've warned you against a break between you and myself. I trust that this is not really your true opinion."
Henry's cold and sullen vexation left him. He was sorry he had called. But pride and habit made him carry through. He spoke dispassionately.
"I mean what I said, Mr. Voorhees. If the Record doesn't turn over tomorrow morning on the matter of the municipal administration, I'll come down and change editors myself. I'll find somebody else. That's all."
Henry hung up.
Collins leaped on a chair and cheered.
Jack ran in.
"What's the matter?"
"Nothing," Henry said slowly. "Nothing." Then to Collins: "I did that because I was disgusted. I've decided to go back with McCobb."
"What!"
"But I thought I might as well make one gesture before I left."
"Going to quit, Stone?"
"Yes."
"After a start like that?"
"It was foolish. A waste of time. I was angry--that's all."
"I see."
Collins walked around the room. His thoughts of the Record conquered him momentarily.
"God! It'll be funny. People are rushing right now to Voorhees with their hair on end. Big shots. And Voorhees' gorillas will be biting their finger nails."
"His gorillas?"
"Sure. The bodyguard in his office and the tough guys he keeps hanging around every department just to be sure nothing goes wrong. Every man in the pressroom is a thug--Voorhees' private army always ready with strong-arm stuff."
"I didn't know about them," Henry said. "Toughs in the office, eh? That's like him. Jack!"
"Yes, boss."
"You can begin packing my things. I'm going back to the island."
The Negro almost lost his balance. "Am I--do I--?"
"You want to go with me, Jack?"
"Yes, boss--" Jack gulped. "I want to go."
"All right."
Collins shook his head. "You don't seem to be very happy--even about that."
' I'm not happy--about anything."
"Going to say good-bye to Marian and her grandfather?"
Henry did not answer.
He went to the bedroom window. Collins followed. Lights had been turned on in the deeper canyons. The sun was sinking over the blue Jersey hills. He was going. He had not known it until he spoke.
Home.
All this--would be gone.
He turned and faced Collins.
' I'm going," he repeated. "You wouldn't understand why. But--" He picked up his thoughts. "I came here like Christopher Columbus. The new world was ahead of me. I was bursting with love for it, ambition, ideals. I had yearned for it for twenty years--ever since I was a child. I had been taught that it was a glorious place where a man could do a man's work.
"What did I find? First--something so beautiful, and breathtaking, that I could not contain myself. The buildings and the machinery. We never imagined anything like it on the island. It seemed to me that humanity was at last reaching up toward the stars. That it had climbed out of the earth. I was ecstatic.
"Then I looked again. You have to look twice to see. The whole world is sour.
Rotten. Despicable. It has emerged from the most terrible war of all time--a war that accomplished, absolutely nothing. Blood in rivers in every direction and afterward--
jealous piddling of little men. It's sickening.
"Once there was in this country a standard of morals and manners. That's gone.
Vulgarity is everywhere. In the theaters and the radio and the newspapers. Nobody cares.
Vicious men run through the streets with machine guns and shoot down children.
Demagogues and morons and even criminals are elected political leaders. The bodies of government have become a shambles of cheap wit and expensive graft. My father warned me against women--and the women have sunk beneath the men. They're painted prostitutes--even the old ones. Decency has deserted the best homes. Everyone fights for money. Money! There's madness for it. Greed and exploitation. War and corruption.
Stupidity and hatred."
Henry had pronounced his anathema in a steady, low voice. He drew a breath and continued: "You--Whitney--ask me to do something about it. You expect that I shall be able to change it--able and willing--just because I was brought up in a tradition that once was American--a tradition that is averse to countenancing murder, to admiring public assassinations, to abetting corruption, to breaking the law, to being cynical about rotten banks, to gambling with hard-won savings, to rampant and gaudy publicity for sex and fornication, to adultery and infidelity, to the practice of sending the impotent and the malicious to Congress, to subjugation to political trickery, to bribery, public theft, half-baked campaigns in the name of modernity and for the purpose of pornographic profit, to lies and cheating, to a vast, cosmic hypocrisy which should make the body of even a tenth-rate nation turn crimson from shame and fight for its internal freedom until decency had been restored or suicide had been committed."
Henry stopped.
For once, Collins was not superficial. He seemed, even, to be stirred by a form of anger. He stood and began to talk.
"That's not true and that's not fair. Or--rather--it's only partly true. It's one side.
You haven't looked at the other and you don't seem to care to see it. I don't give a red-hot God-damn what you think--but I can't help speaking about what you've said.
"You're in a country that's full of a hundred kinds of people--and that's responsible for part of the confusion and crime. But you're in a country where the world is being changed every day. You're in a country where men for the first time since the dawn have the courage to question everything. Where religion isn't being handed from father to son a
s an immutable set of laws but is being sifted for what's worth while. To do that takes nerve. You're in a country where the people have grown sick of the pretense of the fashionable morals you're praising, and maybe not all their experiments are successes, but at least they aren't afraid to try."
Collins's words fell like rolls on a drum.
"There's contest here. And look at science. You're in a world where men have given their lives by the hundred in rotten little laboratories and foul clinics to do away with disease and make humanity healthy. The stars are being weighed and the atoms pulled apart. You talk about the war. Maybe it didn't make the world safe for democracy-
-but there are a million men and more who believed that it would and plenty who went out there and got their hearts torn out because they hoped it would. Of course, there's confusion. Of course, there's crime and vice. When hasn't there been? But there never were so many people who wanted to end it and who were ready to help end it and who get down on their intellectual hands and knees every night and pray to whatever gods they have for someone to come along and help them end it. This is daybreak. The Middle Ages didn't end with the Renaissance. They didn't end with the Industrial Revolution.
They're ending now, and only now. Man's turned honest and admitted his sins and his motives. That made hell to pay, and that was the only way back over the long track of human error--to a little human happiness and decency and peace and development. You--
"
Collins did not finish. The bell on the door of the suite rang and Jack answered it.
Henry stared at Collins in astonishment. Collins sat down, exhausted.
In the next room, Jack opened the door and saw three men outside. They had guns in their hands. Jack had had experience with the world, and with men, and he knew death when he saw it in human eyes.
He knew it was intended for Henry.
He interposed his huge body.
"What you all want?" he said steadily.
"Mr. Stone here?"
"He's--"
"One side."
A revolver was poked into Jack's ribs. But Jack did not bulge. His right hand had reached under his coat. He brought out an enormous butcher knife.
"You go away," he said.
"Get back, nigger. You'll get hurt."
Tense, hoarse words.
"Go away--"
The first man--a little man with a black mustache--tried to get around Jack.
Jack side-stepped to confront him.