Part 13

"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?"

"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.

"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."

"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----"

"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.

J. F. SULLIVAN.

Transcriber's Notes:

Simple spelling, grammar, and typographical errors were silently corrected.

Anachronistic and non-standard spellings retained as printed.

Italics markup is enclosed in _underscores_.

Title page added by transcriber.