V
Toward the end of the next week I went to the Globe, and so understood at last that what Destiny had brewed was tragedy. Ernie was in the film; so far he had been right. But in how different a rôle! I could understand how they had tricked him. An actor on the screen knows nothing, or may know nothing of scenes in which he does not himself appear. Ernie had no doubt been told that he was playing the part of a great inventor upon whom the hopes of the nation rested; he had accepted the explanation, had accepted the barred windows, the steel door, the guard outside, and the solicitous visitors.
But he had been deceived, perhaps because they feared he would not otherwise consent to play the part they assigned to him. For the Ernie in the films was no great inventor but an insane old man; the bars at his windows were the bars of a madman’s cell. Within, this madman pottered at his mad designs, and the guard at the door was not to keep others out but to keep him in; and the solicitous visitors paid him no respect but only humored his poor illusion. There were tears in my eyes before the thing was finished—tears of pity for Ernie, and tears of hot anger at the callous brutality of those who had contrived this thing. I thought of legal action on his behalf; but they had, no doubt, been wise enough to have him sign a release from all responsibility. There was nothing that could be done.
I avoided the service-station for the week thereafter; I could not bear to see Ernie. But at last it was necessary to go in. I planned to tell him, if he asked, that I had missed seeing the film. So much poor kindness I could do the man.
When I drove in, he was on the washing-floor, working about a limousine. The old, ragged hose was in his hand; the sprinkler he had designed was still attached to the ceiling, but unused. I parked my car in an empty space and walked across to him. He looked up with his old timidly amiable smile, and I saw that the alert confidence and the sense of power were utterly gone.
“There’s a grease-cup missing, Ernie, from the rear end,” I told him. “If you see one kicking around—”
“Why, yes; sure,” he promised me.
I hesitated, then said smilingly, “Won’t need to bother with them in a year or two—”
By his answer, I knew that the dreams were gone and the vision was fled.
“Oh, I guess we’ll have to keep puttering on in the same old ways,” said Ernie Budder hopelessly.