Then Bill shook him as he renewed his laughter—shook him until the breath had left him, and he sat down weakly on a piñon stump.
“Thing is,” said Bill, “what’ll we do with Wolfgang?”
For a long time Joshua was silent, as gradually the realization of what had taken place crept into his befuddled mind.
“What can we do?” he asked simply.
“That’s up to you,” Bill told him. “Whatever you say goes with me. I’d turn my back, I guess, while ye cut his throat.”
For fully five minutes not another word passed between the two. Then Joshua rose to his feet with a long sigh.
“I’ve thought it all out, Bill,” he announced, “and there’s nothing that I can do. I’ll simply let him go—that’s all. I’ll tell you, Bill: When a fellow has for years devoted his soul to study of the fundamental things of life, everything else seems puny. Look through that refractor for an hour and you’ll get the feeling, too. When you begin to realize the vastness of the universe, and know that beyond the one in which we live lie countless other universes as stupendous or even more stupendous than this one, you—you begin to realize that you are like a tiny straw in the wind—that your little difficulties, disappointments and fruitless struggles on this insignificant ball of stones and earth are not worthy of a moment’s thought. Slim Wolfgang has been the means of robbing me of the girl I love. If I had fallen heir to that money— Well, you remember what I told you about Madge. And now I have nothing left but my work. I’ll wrap myself up in it soul and body—and forget. So I have no time to bother about Slim Wolfgang. Open the door and let him go.”
“But, Tony—”
“You don’t understand, Bill. I can never make you understand. So you must just take my word for it that to revenge myself on Wolfgang would give me no satisfaction at all. I have not fully realized until to-night that I have not been truly devoted to my science. I have allowed other interests to claim a part of my time and my thoughts. And all this has come upon me at once to prove the old adage that Science is a jealous mistress, and will brook no rivals. I have learned my lesson. I can’t have money; I can’t even have relatives; I can’t have any other work to claim my time; I can’t have love. And if all these things must be denied me because I have consecrated myself to Science, what time have I for the petty satisfaction a man would get from revenging himself on an insignificant fellow stumbler on this insignificant earth? No, Bill—I’ve lived in other worlds too much to descend to that. Open the door and let Slim Wolfgang be on his way.”
“Tony, I’m ord’narily a peaceful man myself,” Bill responded. “You know that ’thout me tellin’ ye. But to-night I’m mad. To-night I don’t know what I couldn’t do to that pimp in there. An’—”