From the Housetops

by George Barr McCutcheon

"I am not speaking of such cases. I only speak of the cases where there can be no doubt. There are such cases, you see. I would let Death take its toll, just as it has always done, and I would fight for my patient until the last breath was gone from his body. Two weeks ago a child was gored by a bull back here in the country. It was disembowelled. That child lived for many hours,—and suffered. That's what I mean, in substance. I too believe in the old maxim,—'while there's life there's hope.' That is the foundation on which our profession is built. A while ago you spoke of the extremely aged as possible victims of my theories. I suppose you meant to ask me if I would include them in my list. God forbid! To me there is nothing more beautiful than a happy, healthy, contented old age. We love our old people. If we love them we do not think of them as old. We want them to live,—just as I shall want to live, and you, Simmy. And we want them to die when their time comes, by God's hand not man's, for God does give them a peaceful, glorious end. But we don't want them to suffer, any more than we would want the young to suffer, I loved my grandfather. Death was a great boon to him. He wanted to die. But all old men do not want to die. They—"

"We're not getting anywhere with this kind of talk," interrupted Simmy. "The sum and substance is this: you would put it in the power of a few men to destroy human life on the representation of a few doctors. If these doctors said—"

"And why not? We put it into the power of twelve men to send a man to the gallows on the testimony of witnesses who may be lying like thieves. We take the testimony of doctors as experts in our big murder trials. If we believe some of them we hang the man because they say he is sane. On the other hand we frequently acquit the guilty man if they say he's insane."

Simmy squinted a half-closed eye, calculatingly, judicially. "My dear fellow, the insane asylums in this country to-day hold any number of reasonably sane inmates, sent there by commissions which perhaps unintentionally followed out the plans of designing persons who were actuated solely by selfish and avaricious motives. Control of great properties falls into the hands of conspiring relatives simply because it happened to be an easy matter to get some one snugly into a madhouse." He said no more. Braden was allowed to draw his own conclusions.

"Oh, I dare say people will go on putting obstacles out of their way till the end of time," said he coolly. "If I covet your wife or your ass or your money-bags I put poison in your tea and you very obligingly die, and all that the law can do is to send me after you as soon as the lawyers have got through with me. That is no argument, Simmy. That sort of thing will go on forever."

Finally Thorpe settled back in his chair resignedly, worn out by the persistent argument of his tormentor.

"Well, suppose that I agree with all you say,—what then? Suppose that I take up my burden, as you say I should, and set out to bring the world around to my way of thinking, where am I to begin and how?"

Simmy contrived to suppress the sigh of relief that rose to his lips. This was making headway, after all. Things looked brighter.

"My dear fellow, it will take you a good many years to even make a beginning. You can't go right smack up against the world and say: 'Here, you, look sharp! I'm going to hit you in the eye.' In the first place, you will have to convince the world that you are a great, big man in your profession. You will have to cure ten thousand people before you can make the world believe that you are anybody at all. Then people will listen to you and what you say will have some effect. You can't do anything now. Twenty years from now, when you are at the top of your profession, you will be in a position to do something. But in the meantime you will have to make people understand that you can cure 'em if anybody can, so that when you say you can't cure 'em, they'll know it's final. I'm not asking you to renounce your ideas. You can even go on talking about them and writing to the newspapers and all that sort of thing, if you want to, but you've got to build up a reputation for yourself before you can begin to make use of all this money along the lines laid down for you. But first of all you must make people say that in spite of your theories you are a practical benefactor and not a plain, ordinary crank. Go on sowing the seed if you will, and then when the time comes found a college in which your principles may be safely and properly taught, and then see what people will say."

"It sounds very simple, the way you put it," said Thorpe, with a smile.