THEY crowded into the cage. Young shut his eyes and suffered as interested stares were directed upon the hat. He fell into a state of coma, arousing only at the ground floor, where Devlin dragged him out and into the adjacent bar.
Now Young’s plan was this: he would pour drink after drink down his companion’s capacious gullet, and await his chance to slip away unobserved. It was a shrewd scheme, but it had one flaw—Devlin refused to drink alone.
“One for you and one for me,” he said. “That’s fair. Have another.”
Young could not refuse, under the circumstances. The worst of it was that Devlin’s liquor seemed to seep into every cell of his huge body, leaving him, finally,-in the same state of glowing happiness which had been his originally. But poor Young was, to put it as charitably as possible, tight.
He sat quietly in a booth, glaring across at Devlin. Each time the waiter arrived, Young knew that the man’s eyes were riveted upon the hat. And each round made the thought of that more irritating.
Also, Young worried about his halo. He brooded over sins. Arson, burglary, sabotage, and murder passed in quick review through his befuddled mind. Once he attempted to snatch the waiter’s change, but the man was too alert. He laughed pleasantly and placed a fresh glass before Young.
The latter eyed it with distaste. Suddenly coming to a decision, he arose and wavered toward the door. Devlin overtook him on the sidewalk.
“What’s the matter? Let’s have another—”
“I have work to do,” said Young with painful distinctness. He snatched a walking cane from a passing pedestrian and made threatening gestures with it until the remonstrating victim fled hurriedly. Hefting the stick in his hand, he brooded blackly.
“But why work?” Devlin inquired largely. “Show me the town.”
“I have important matters to attend to.” Young scrutinized a small child who had halted by the curb and was returning the stare with interest. The tot looked remarkably like the brat who had been so insulting on the bus.
“What’s important?” Devlin demanded. “Important matters, eh? Such as what?”
“Beating small children,” said Young, and rushed upon the startled child, brandishing his cane. The youngster uttered a shrill scream and fled. Young pursued for a few feet and then became entangled with a lamp-post. The lamp-post was impolite and dictatorial. It refused to allow Young to pass. The man remonstrated and, finally, argued, but to no avail.
The child had long since disappeared. Administering a brusque and snappy rebuke to the lamp-post, Young turned away.
“What in Pete’s name are you trying to do?” Devlin inquired. “That cop’s looking at us. Come along.” He took the other’s arm and led him along the crowded sidewalk.
“What am I trying to do?” Young sneered. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? I wish to sin.”
“Er . . . sin?”
“Sin.”
“Why?”
Young tapped his hat meaningly, but Devlin put an altogether wrong interpretation on the gesture. “You’re nuts?”
“Oh, shut up,” Young snapped in a sudden burst of rage, and thrust his cane between the legs of a passing bank president whom he knew slightly. The unfortunate man fell heavily to the cement, but arose without injury save to his dignity.
“I beg your pardon!” he barked.
Young was going through a strange series of gestures. He had fled to a show-window mirror and was doing fantastic things to his hat, apparently trying to lift it in order to catch a glimpse of the top of his head—a sight, it seemed, to be shielded jealously from profane eyes. At length he cursed loudly, turned, gave the bank president a contemptuous stare, and hurried away, trailing the puzzled Devlin like a captive balloon.
Young was muttering thickly to himself.
“Got to sin—really sin. Something big. Burn down an orphan asylum. Kill m’ mother-in-law. Kill . . . anybody!” He looked quickly at Devlin, and the latter shrank back in sudden fear. But finally Young gave a disgusted grunt.
“Nrgh. Too much blubber. Couldn’t use a gun or a knife. Have to blast—
Look!” Young said, clutching Devlin’s arm. “Stealing’s a sin, isn’t it?”
“Sure is,” the diplomatic Devlin agreed. “But you’re not—”
Young shook his head. “No. Too crowded here. No use going to jail. Come on!”
HE plunged forward. Devlin followed. And Young fulfilled his promise to show his guest the town, though afterward neither of them could remember exactly what had happened. Presently Devlin paused in a liquor store for refueling, and emerged with bottles protruding here and there from his clothing.
Hours merged into an alcoholic haze. Life began to assume an air of foggy unreality to the unfortunate Devlin. He sank presently into a coma, dimly conscious of various events which marched with celerity through the afternoon and long into the night. Finally he roused himself sufficiently to realize that he was standing with Young confronting a wooden Indian which stood quietly outside a cigar store. It was, perhaps, the last of the wooden Indians. The outworn relic of a bygone day, it seemed to stare with faded glass eyes at the bundle of wooden cigars it held in an extended hand.
Young was no longer wearing a hat. And Devlin suddenly noticed something decidedly peculiar about his companion.
He said softly, “You’ve got a halo.”
Young started slightly. “Yes,” he replied, “I’ve got a halo. This Indian—” He paused.
Devlin eyed the image with disfavor. To his somewhat fuzzy brain the wooden Indian appeared even more horrid than the surprising halo. He shuddered and hastily averted his gaze.
“Stealing’s a sin,” Young said under his breath, and then, with an elated cry, stooped to lift the Indian. He fell immediately under its weight, emitting a string of smoking oaths as he attempted to dislodge the incubus.
“Heavy,” he said, rising at last. “Give me a hand.”
Devlin had long since given up any hope of finding sanity in this madman’s actions. Young was obviously determined to sin, and the fact that he possessed a halo was somewhat disquieting, even to the drunken Devlin. As a result, the two men proceeded down the street, bearing with them the rigid body of a wooden Indian.
The proprietor of the cigar shop came out and looked after them, rubbing his hands. His eyes followed the departing statue with unmitigated joy.
“For ten years I’ve tried to get rid of that thing,” he whispered gleefully. “And now . . . aha!”
He re-entered the store and lit a Corona to celebrate his emancipation.
Meanwhile, Young and Devlin found a taxi stand. One cab stood there; the driver sat puffing a cigarette and listening to his radio. Young hailed the man.
“Cab, sir?” The driver sprang to life, bounced out of the car, and flung open the door. Then he remained frozen in a half-crouching position, his eyes revolving wildly in their sockets.
He had never believed in ghosts. He was, in fact, somewhat of a cynic. But in the face of a bulbous ghoul and a decadent angel bearing the stiff corpse of an Indian, he felt with a sudden, blinding shock of realization that beyond life lies a black abyss teaming with horror unimaginable. Whining shrilly, the terrified man leaped back into his cab, got the thing into motion, and vanished as smoke before the gale.
YOUNG and Devlin looked at one another ruefully.
“What now?” the latter asked.
“Well,” said Young, “I don’t live far from here. Only ten blocks or so. Come on!”
It was very late, and few pedestrians were abroad. These few. for the sake of their sanity., were quite willing to ignore the wanderers and go their separate ways. So eventually Young. Devlin, and the wooden Indian arrived at their destination.
The door of Young’s home was locked, and he could not locate the key. He was curiously averse to arousing Jill. But, for some strange reason, he felt it vitally necessary that the wooden Indian be concealed. The cellar was the logical place. He dragged his two companions to a basement
window, smashed it as quietly as possible, and slid the image through the gap.
“Do you really live here?” asked Devlin, who had his doubts.
“Hush!” Young said warningly. “Come on!”
He followed the wooden Indian, landing with a crash in a heap of coal. Devlin joined him after much wheezing and grunting. It was not dark. The halo provided about as much illumination as a twenty-five-watt globe.
Young left Devlin to nurse his bruises and began searching for the wooden Indian. It had unaccountably vanished. But he found it at last cowering beneath a wash tub, dragged the object out, and set it up in a corner. Then he stepped back and faced it, swaying a little.
“That’s a sin, all right,” he chuckled. “Theft. It isn’t the amount that matters. It’s the principle of the thing. A wooden Indian is just as important as a million dollars, eh, Devlin?”
“I’d like to chop that Indian into fragments,” said Devlin with passion. “You made me carry it for three miles.” He paused, listening. “What in heaven’s name is that?”
A small tumult was approaching. Filthy, having been instructed often in his duties as a watchdog, now faced opportunity. Noises were proceeding from the cellar. Burglars, no doubt. The raffish Scotty cascaded down the stairs in a babel of fruitful threats and oaths. Loudly declaring his intention of eviscerating the intruders, he flung himself upon Young, who made hasty clucking sounds intended to soothe the Scotty’s aroused passions.
Filthy had other ideas. He spun like a dervish, yelling bloody murder. Young wavered, made a vain snatch at the air, and fell prostrate to the ground. He remained face down, while Filthy, seeing the halo, rushed at it and trampled upon his master’s head.
The wretched Young felt the ghosts of a dozen and more drinks rising to confront him. He clutched at the dog, missed, and gripped instead the feet of the wooden Indian. The image swayed perilously. Filthy cocked up an apprehensive eye and fled down the length of his master’s body, pausing halfway as he remembered his duty. With a muffled curse he sank his teeth into the nearest portion of Young and attempted to yank off the miserable man’s pants.
Meanwhile, Young remained face down, clutching the feet of the wooden Indian in a despairing grip.
There was a resounding clap of thunder. White light blazed through the cellar. The angel appeared.
Devlin’s legs gave way. He sat down in a plump heap, shut his eyes, and began chattering quietly to himself. Filthy swore at the intruder, made an unsuccessful attempt to attain a firm grasp on one of the gently fanning wings, and went back to think it over, arguing throatily. The wing had an unsatisfying lack of substantiality.
The angel stood over Young with golden fires glowing in his eyes, and. a benign look of pleasure molding his noble features. “This,” he said quietly, “shall be taken as a symbol of your first successful good deed since your enhaloment.” A wingtip brushed the dark and grimy visage of the Indian. Forthwith, there was no Indian. “You have lightened the heart of a fellow man—little, to be sure, but some, and at a cost of much labor on your part.
“For a day you have struggled with this sot to redeem him, but for this no success has rewarded you, albeit the morrow’s pains will afflict you.
“Go forth, K. Young, rewarded and protected from all sin alike by your halo.” The youngest angel faded quietly, for which alone Young was grateful. His head was beginning to ache and he’d feared a-possible thunderous vanishment.
Filthy laughed nastily, and renewed his attack on the halo. Young found the unpleasant act of standing upright necessary. While it made the walls and tubs spin round like all the hosts of heaven, it made impossible Filthy’s dervish dance on his face.
SOME time later he awoke, cold sober and regretful of the fact. He lay between cool sheets, watching morning sunlight lance through the windows, his eyes, and feeling it splinter in jagged bits in his brain. His stomach was making spasmodic attempts to leap up and squeeze itself out through his burning throat.
Simultaneous with awakening came realization of three things: the pains of the morrow had indeed afflicted him; the halo mirrored still in the glass above the dressing table—and the parting words of the angel.
He groaned a heartfelt triple groan. The headache would pass, but the halo, he knew, would not. Only by sinning could one become unworthy of it, and—shining protector!—it made him unlike other men: His deeds must all be good, his works a help to men. He could not sin!
ROMAN HOLIDAY
Pete Manx Speeds Back Twenty Centuries in Time to Find You Can’t Build Rome in One Day!
PETE MANX was nervous. Spieling before a sideshow or working the shell game on some sucker, he’d have felt at home. But the apparatus in Dr. Mayhem’s laboratory bothered him. Power cables, massive insulators, tubes, coils—huh-uh! Ever since Pete’s brother-in-law had taken the hot squat in Joliet, Pete himself had developed a definite allergy to electricity.
He tipped his derby back on his bullet head, squinting at Mayhem.
“Now look,” he said. “I know my rights; I ain’t no guinea pig. For a hundred bucks I’ll do a lot, but—”
“Shush,” frowned the doctor. “You won’t be hurt. Just wait here, Mr. Manx, till I give the word.”
Mayhem’s agile, wizened figure disappeared behind a curtain. A spatter of applause greeted him as he appeared on an improvised rostrum in a screened-off portion of his laboratory.
Pete tiptoed to the curtain and parted it. He glimpsed a dozen young men—college kids—and a large, amorphous gentleman who wore with dignity pince-nez and a who-the-devil-are-you air.
“Nasty looking customer,” Pete told himself. “Wonder what this is all about? The doc wouldn’t give me a hundred fish for nothing.”
Mayhem commenced to talk.
“Gentlemen, I regret keeping you waiting. I invited you here to witness a little experiment. Professor Aker”—he bowed, with a faintly ironic leer, to the man with the pince-nez—“has honored me by disagreeing with a certain theory I postulated. He maintains that you and I, gentlemen, are—um—cogs.”
Pete grinned as he saw the large gentleman bristle, then rise.
“Dr. Mayhem,” rumbled Professor Aker, “I am at a loss to know why I was summoned to your laboratory. But now that I am here, I feel that it would be expedient to explain my premise.”
“Here we go again,” whispered an irreverent freshman. Professor Aker had, in the university, a definite reputation as a bore.
“Ahem,” said the professor. “It was my contention that our present-day civilization is such a complex organization, with each individual so dependent upon many other individuals for existence, that a man today receives no practical education whatsoever. He is, as I said, merely a cog. In other words, he knows only a limited phase of whatever trade or profession he follows.”
“And,” prodded Mayhem, “you said that if a modern man were suddenly transported back to ancient Rome, for instance—”
“Ah, yes, yes. Despite his apparent advantage of centuries of knowledge, he would be utterly helpless. He would starve for want of ability to make something useful. An office worker—what could he do? Nothing. Could an automobile worker who spends his days bolting on fenders support himself in Rome?
“Or take an ordinary jeweler. Could he make the parts of the watches he repairs every day? Of course not! He couldn’t build a clock to save his soul! I contend that the only type of man with any chance of making a financial success, if cast back into the past, is the man of science. Science alone can defeat adverse environment.”
Mayhem chuckled unpleasantly.
“So you say, repeatedly. But if you really could go back to Roman times, I wonder if you would still feel the same?”
Aker drew himself up.
“My dear Mayhem, I would revolutionize Roman standards of. living, change the course of history, by the simple introduction of cheap power. Electricity. The history of civilization is, of course, the history of transportation. By introducing electricity a
nd motors, I could—”
“Yes, yes. Familiar ground, Professor Aker. But you are soon to have a chance to put your theory to the test. I’ve built a time machine,” said Mayhem with the simplicity of true genius. “No, don’t argue. It’s never been done before, I know. But then there’s never been a Horatio Mayhem before. I can project you back into past time, and, unless you want to back down, I can send you temporarily to the days of ancient Rome.”
“You are mad,” Aker decided.
“Suit yourself. But I’d like to make a small wager. I need a few thousand dollars’ worth of new equipment for my research—”
Aker reacted as department heads have reacted immemorially to such suggestions. “Outrageous! I have already told you I would not countenance such wanton expenditure.”
“So,” Mayhem spoke persuasively, “I’ll bet with you. I’ll send you and another man—an ordinary layman—back to Rome, and give you a certain period in which to prove your theory. If my man makes a bigger success than you, then you’ll give me the equipment I want.”
AKER purpled.
“What! Do you seriously—”
“Afraid?” taunted Mayhem.
Pete Manx, still watching surreptitiously, chuckled. Mayhem had maneuvered Aker behind the eight ball. With all those school kids making wise remarks and daring the old bloat to go through with his argument, Aker, pompous and sensitive, didn’t dare back down now.
Aker glared around. “Afraid? Bah!” he growled. “Of course not!” He. sank down into his chair.
“Then you agree,” Mayhem smiled. “Good! You may come out now, Mr. Manx.”
Manx appeared from behind the curtain, waving a hand agreeably at the group. “Hiya,” he grinned. “Just call me Pete.”
“Who is this person?” Aker demanded.
“A gentleman I hired at the beach—a barker at one of the concessions, in fact. His chief virtues are a certain native shrewdness and a knowledge of Latin, a knowledge he shares with you, Professor. Naturally, when you go back to Rome, it is necessary to speak the Roman tongue.”
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