Magnus frowned at me for a few moments and suddenly broke into laughter:
“You certainly are a pilgrim from some other planet, Wondergood!... And what if I should devote your gold to doing evil?”
“Why? Is that so very interesting?”
“Hm!... You think that is not interesting?”
“Yes, and so do you. You are too big a man to do little evil, just as billions constitute too much money, while honestly as far as great evil is concerned, I know not yet what great evil is? Perhaps it is really great good? In my recent contemplations, there...came to me a strange thought: Who is of greater use to man—he who hates or he who loves him? You see, Magnus, how ignorant I still am of human affairs and...how ready I am for almost anything.”
Without laughter and, with what seemed to me, extreme curiosity, Magnus measured me with his eyes, as if he were deciding the question: is this a fool I see before me, or the foremost sage of America? Judging by his subsequent question he was nearer the second opinion:
“So, if I have correctly understood your words, you are afraid of nothing, Mr. Wondergood?”
“I think not.”
“And murder...many murders?”
“You remember the point you made in your story about the boy of the boundary of the human? In order that there may be no mistake, I have moved it forward several kilometers. Will that be enough?”