by Don Wilcox
“Maybe . . . I had my heart set on crashing some city across the mountains for a job. But if I could save up a little cash first, to get some clothes—”
“It’s safe and peaceful up here,” Rustan mused. “In these times you never know what’s going to happen in the cities.”
“If you think your boss and his wife would like me well enough to hire me for a few weeks—”
“I’m sure of it, Mary!”
Two weeks later Mary rode away in a station wagon driven by a uniformed chauffeur and occupied by an elderly crippled man with a crisp authoritative voice and masterful manners.
The station wagon had come up into the driveway without warning, Rustan learned from the sour-faced hired man. There had been a few minutes’ talk about a mysterious job and the girl had agreed to leave at once.
“She said she would stop and tell you goodbye if she saw you in the field,” Sour-face told the staggered young man. “And if she didn’t see you I was to give you all her love and kisses.”
So that was that.
Rustan went back to work, but his heart wasn’t in it.
And for the next three years he had no heart for work of any kind. He drifted back and forth across the continent, scouring every city for some wisp of information about a lost girl named Mary. His search was fruitless.
He tried repeatedly to get work, but there was no work.
At length he joined that growing group of cynical and vicious drifters called the Rag Birds, who made it their pet sport to climb the trees in the parks to mock at the respectable people who passed beneath.
And like the other Rag Birds, he accustomed his eyes to the ugliness of ragged clothes and unshaven faces and dirt and hunger, and sharpened his ears to the hollow ring of every noble sentiment uttered by a well-fed magistrate.
CHAPTER III
Mozambique Has a Vision
Magistrate Mozambique was off on his summer vacation. He was having a high old time. Or, as he would later tell his fellow magistrates, he was getting the pleasurable restoration that his over-wrought nervous constitution so badly needed.
Magistrate Mozambique had a nose like a baked apple and ears like pancakes—but, as every important citizen and thousands of non-important Rag Birds in one of the continent’s oldest cities were well aware, the magistrate had a very tender eye for beauty.
When Mozambique first laid eyes on the beautiful Venzita, strumming her silver-plated guitar with the languid air of an artist lost to all save her music, a visible shudder rocked his overstuffed frame. He elbowed his way through the crowd.
He paused, touched by a conflict of random emotions—a jubilation at his discovery, a certain sadness that such a beautiful creature should be exposed to the gaze of so many onlookers obviously inferior to himself, an unfathomable yearning to know who this creature was and where she came from, and a slightly pained awareness that her guitar was out of tune.
“Venzita!” He murmured the name over to himself, smiling stageward as his lips moved. The girl’s eyes momentarily swept across him. He caught his breath.
Then the song was over, the girl disappeared in the wings, and a little old man in a wheel-chair moved out on the stage. After a moment, Mozambique managed to turn his eyes upon this newcomer, though it was like focusing upon a dark object immediately after a dazzling light has flashed across one’s eyes.
The man in the wheel-chair had a sharp, cunning face, heavy eyelids, a sharp little beard that grew—or stuck on—at an impertinent angle.
Magistrate Mozambique listened to the little old man’s crisp words . . . What’s this . . . Your problems solved by visions? . . . Rats . . . Mozambique had no problems. He was on his vacation.
What’s that? . . . The beautiful Venzita entertains with her melodious music while you await the preparation of the vision stage? Ah, that’s different! . . . After all, there were many disturbing problems in the back of any magistrate’s mind . . . There were bound to be . . . A vision would be the very thing . . . Twenty-five dollars? A mere nothing. Solve some of the city’s problems—let the city pay the bill! A perfect set-up . . .
Late that night, after Mozambique returned to his hotel, he jotted a few items in his official expense book. The vision had been a worth-while investment, he was sure, for at the time it had clarified for him some courses of action that had kept him and the other magistrates deadlocked for several weeks— indeed, had forced him to take a vacation.
Just what solutions the visions gave him for those deadlocks he did not bother to record. They had become a bit fuzzy in his mind. The real business of the evening had been the dinner to which he had treated Venzita and—er— what was his name?—oh, yes, the emminent Dr. Albert Janetto.
The dinner a success? Mozambique should hope to say it was! He had secured from the doctor a solemn promise. The doctor and his charming protégé would come to Mozambique’s city and appear before the magistrates assembled. The doctor had accepted an advance from the city’s funds to clinch the deal . . .
Twelve days later Magistrate Mozambique took extreme pleasure in making an introduction and proposing a toast.
“To our guests of the evening, the erudite sage, Dr. Albert Janetto, and his beautiful, charming, fascinating, and—er—beautiful—ugh!—stop me if I said that before, but it’s well worth repeating—to his beautiful protégé, Venzita!”
Sixteen glasses lifted and sixteen magisterial gullets swallowed wine. Then the waiters brought on the feast, and the capital dining hall rang with knives and forks and gaiety. Sixteen magistrates listened to the gems of wisdom from the little old man in the wheel-chair, and vied with each other in a contest of wits to win approving smiles from the girl . . .
A few weeks later the same sixteen eager magistrates stood on the broad portico of the capital building and watched the builders construct the new “Temple of Visions.”
Each day they looked out upon the rising walls, they congratulated themselves. This was the initial step in their new program of national culture. In spite of the New Dark Ages, they would make this capital a city of beauty!
“The City of Beauty!”
At every gateway in the city’s walls they had mammoth electric signs erected to announce their reputation to the world.
And when the thousands of Rag Birds, perched in trees, heard the city’s new name they laughed and laughed. They poked fun at themselves and their own dirt and misery. “Look at us!” They would shout to respectable passers-by. “We’re your ornaments!” We’re sittin’ up here to make your city beautiful. Whoopee! Ain’t we the gorgeous things!”
The magistrates, needless to say, were nettled by these ugly taunts. They took the matter up with Dr. Albert Janetto’s visions. Under the spell of perfumes and colored smokes and powerful potions they dreamed up an answer to this trifling trouble. Private cabs for magistrates.
The appropriation was made, the private cabs were manufactured—comfortable, luxurious, and so thoroughly sound-proof that no Rag Bird’s taunt could penetrate their walls. Wherewith, the magistrates congratulated themselves on having rid themselves of a disturbance.
In six months the new Temple of Visions was complete to the last gold doorknob. Mozambique strutted through its marble walled rooms with the air of a hotel proprietor followed by fifteen stockholders—his fellow magistrates. The sixteen were pleased with themselves. It was a masterpiece of extravagance.
“But definitely an investment!” they continually reminded themselves.
“Ah, yes!” said the little man in the wheel-chair. “This is an investment you shall never regret. You have been wise enough to recognize higher values. Visions can be of unlimited help to you. You have the ponderous weight of government on your shoulders. But I am now at your service—yours to command.”
“Exactly!” said Mozambique. “You and your visions are to us what the special commissions were to the governments of the past—a special device for supplying those invaluable insights—”
“Pre
cisely,” another magistrate chimed in. And another, “Shall we drink to the beginning of a new era?”
“To an era of wisdom and beauty!”
“To beauty!” others echoed . . .
Dr. Albert Janetto watched the sixteen men march back over the ornate arched passage high over the street from his new temple to their capital building. He took a deep comfortable breath, closed his thick eyelids. Then in spite of himself he burst into laughter.
“I have arrived!” he chuckled, and his laughter trailed off in a deep, satisfied rumble. “By the gods of wit, I have arrived! And how? On a silver platter borne by sixteen stupid, silly—”
A young attendant picking up the empty glasses, turned sharply and glared. Janetto had been unaware of his presence. He found the glare disturbing, it made the blood rush to his face the way the hoots of the beggars and drifters had used to do back in the carnival days.
But Dr. Janetto was too jubilant over his mounting victories to let a mere capital attendant annoy him. His eyes narrowed sullenly.
“Run along, you!” he barked. “Get back to the capital building where you belong.”
“I beg your pardon, your honor,” said the young attendant. “I was about to ask you a question concerning your famous visions.”
Janetto’s eyes snapped open sharply. “What about them?”
“I’ve heard that they are very reliable, your honor, and I wondered—will anyone besides the magistrates ever have a chance to benefit by them?”
“Who, for instance?”
“Me?”
Janetto considered. He was under no contract to devote his vision facilities exclusively to the magistrates. On the other hand, he had no intention of letting any Tom, Dick, or Harry in on the pie.
But Albert Janetto was in a spot. This young man, he knew, had just overheard a dangerous tongue-slip of his. And Janetto didn’t care to have an attendant go back to the capital building and report that the magistrates had been referred to as stupid and silly—
“I am always glad to exchange favors with worthy persons,” he said. “When would you like to avail yourself of a visit to the vision room?”
“Now.”
“It is customary,” said Janetto, thinking that he might put this young man off, “to precede the visions with a period of soft music. But at the moment my musician, the lovely Venzita, is sleeping. I would not wake her—”
“I’ll dispense with the music,” said the young man. “I’m not interested in any of the trimmings. All I want is a forecast—”
“You have no doubt heard Venzita’s music already?” The doctor rolled along in his new electrically-operated wheel-chair toward the vision room. “No, I’m new here.”
“You have a treat in store,” Janetto smiled reflectively. “Your name?”
“Hobart.”
The doctor paused, opening the door to the newly furnished oval room. This young man was handsome in his well-pressed simple black attire. He looked as if he wouldn’t be long outgrowing an attendant’s uniform. His lean face, his sharp bespectacled eyes, his trim mustache and determined lips gave him the look of a man who had a destiny.
These observations sent a slight shudder through the little doctor and he regretted more than ever having made the slip that put him under obligation to this man.
But all men have their weaknesses, Janetto thought, smiling contentedly within himself.
“I’m sorry you haven’t seen the lovely Venzita,” he said, wheeling into the oval-shaped vision room ahead of Hobart. “Many insist on offering her magnificent gifts.”
“So I’ve heard,” said Hobart with a touch of disdain. “This temple of visions is a magnificent gift, your honor!” Janetto turned in anger. “This temple is no gift! It’s an investment!”
“I heard the magistrates say so,” the handsome attendant laughed lightly, and Janetto detected a tinge of sneer in his mirth. “I quite agree with you that the magistrates are stupid, silly fools—”
“Don’t be hasty in your interpretation!” the doctor snapped. “My remark meant no harm! You’re jumping at false conclusions.”
“What conclusion is there except that you’ve duped the all highest government officials in this capital into spending a million for a mansion for you?”
“You’re talking wild!” the doctor cried. He was halfway out of his wheelchair, his tense fingers extending like claws.
“Take it easy,” the young man growled, planting his hands on his hips. “If I’m wrong, I’m wrong. You don’t have to explode—”
“Listen, my friend,” Janetto slipped back into his chair and his voice toned down to a confidential half-whisper. “You have an intelligent face. You’re smart enough to keep your thoughts to yourself. There’s no reason I shouldn’t tell you exactly what I meant—then you’ll know there was no harm intended.”
Hobart’s lips curled into a faint smile. “Well?”
“Some of those magistrates are silly —about my musician Venzita. They want to marry her. Oh, they don’t say so, of course. Venzita is too clever. They never get far talking with her. But I, with my insight, can read their intentions. Some of them would murder their wives if they had a chance to marry Venzita. And that would be very foolish.”
Janetto’s frail chest heaved with relief as he divested himself of this speech. He concluded, “Now you see why I used the words silly, stupid?”
“The Temple of Visions had nothing to do with it?”
“Nothing,”
“The visions, then, are bona fide?”
“Absolutely. Just sit here, my friend. Let me prepare the incense and the lights and you’ll see for yourself. If you aren’t overwhelmed by the psychological insights you receive, I’ll eat this temple, stone by stone.”
“Go ahead,” said Hobart. “Insights are exactly what I want.”
Dr. Janetto wheeled to the arched windows, pressed a switch. All of the red velvet draperies slowly drew across the stained glass panes. The oval room became a cavern of soft green light, the source of which was an intricate spider web of fine illumined tubes that spread across the curved ceiling.
The motored wheel-chair glided to the front of the room. A touch of Janetto’s hand brought a soft reddish glow from the base of what appeared to be an arched proscenium, crenelated along the floor of the stage with footlight shields of weird shapes.
The red smoke began to rise in sluggish columns from the row of weirdshaped shields to float upward along the folds of purple velvet that filled the proscenium. Janetto caused the overhead web of green to fade into blackness. The oval room was now as dark as if illuminated by a single candle, glowing through red glass. The dim red glow, visible only as it reflected from the seeping wall of smoke, softened the sharpness of Hobart’s eyes, melted the skepticism of his tight lips.
Janetto wheeled down to Hobart’s luxurious chair, placed a small uncorked bottle and a silver-engraved goblet on the ebony shelf attached to the arm of the chair.
“Drink,” he said, “as deeply as you care to. In the same measure will come your visions.”
Hobart’s caution had not all melted with the lights. “If I don’t drink, then what? No visions?”
“That will depend upon you. I cannot guarantee—”
“You might have put poison in this bottle,” said Hobart. “By mistake, of course.”
“No men are ever suspicious of my vision potion,” Janetto said tartly, “excepting men of evil intentions. However, you need not drink. The incense that fills this room will be strong enough in itself. I only ask that you relax, and watch the wall of red smoke with half-closed eyes—and think upon what you see.”
Janetto moved away to the side of the room, the lids fell slowly over the hot coals of his eyes, he breathed with the slow rhythm of sleep.
Hobart reached for the goblet, emptied the bottle into it, drained it through his lips. He took a full relaxing breath, let his shoulders droop, let his hands fall limp over the arms of the chair. Then to make his com
fort complete, he kicked off his narrow attendant’s shoes and wriggled his toes against the lush carpet. He let his eyes go half closed.
Soon the softly glowing wall of perfumed smoke began to suggest pictures to him. He saw figures twist through the sluggish red coils, to rise and disappear. Stars and globes and fairy-like fancies of his mind mingled with the creeping, contorting waves of light against the deep velvety background.
The little balls of light took on clearer edges.
Now one of them hung in the center of the vision. It was a badge—the badge of a magistrate!
Back of it rose the black well-pressed attire of a capital attendant—his own suit that he was now wearing! Yes, his face was there too—and it stayed. It and the badge. But strangely the attendant’s costume floated away.
Only his face and the badge were left!
Hobart gave a start. There could be no mistaking that! And secretly he knew that it was the very ambition that crowded his mind every hour of the day. He would become a magistrate!
The vision stage darkened as Hobart’s thought whirled dizzily. He muttered to himself, “But how can that be? There are already sixteen magistrates. Sixteen is the limit—”
The vision grew clear again, as if in answer to the turmoil in his mind. He saw the towering white-haired Van Hise, the oldest magistrate of all, marching along briskly—a hale and hearty old man.
Then, against the background of swirling smoke, something happened to Van Hise. He apparently tripped, he fell. He did not rise. The visions melted away.
A surge of excitement warmed Hobart’s brain. He had the impulse to spring up, to get into action. If he were to become a magistrate he must start preparing himself at once. No telling how soon that venerable old Van Hise might stumble into death.
But Hobart could not manage to rise. As yet the torpor from the potion still held his body in its grip. He sank back in the chair, dizzy with magnificent ponderings.
