“There ain’t much more. You see the devirg’nised European an’ the immemorially sophisticated Asiatic, who can hold their liquor, spreadin’ out an’ occupyin’ the land (the signs in the streets register that) like—like a lavva-flow in Honolulu. There’s jest a hint, too, of the Return of the Great Scourge, an’ how it fed on all this fresh human meat. Jest a few feet of the flesh rottin’ off the bones—’same as when Syph’lis originated in the Re-nay-sanse Epoch. Last of all—date not specified—will be the herdin’ of the few survivin’ Americans into their reservation in the Yellowstone Park by a few slouchin’, crippled remnants of the Redskins. ’Get me? ‘Presumption’s Ultimate Reward.’ ‘The Wheel Comes Full Circle.’ An’ the final close-up of Rum-in-the-Cup with his Hate-Mission accomplished.”
He stooped again to the photos in the bunk-locker.
“I shot that,” he said, “when I was in the Yellowstone. It’s a document to build up my Last Note on. They’re jest a party of tourists watchin’ grizzly bears rakin’ in the hotel dump-heaps (they keep ’em to show). That wet light hits back well off their clothes, don’t it?”
I saw six or seven men and women, in pale-coloured raincoats, gathered, with no pretence at pose, in a little glade. One man was turning up his collar, another stooping to a bootlace, while a woman opened her umbrella over him. They faced towards a dimly defined heap of rubbish and tins; and they looked unutterably mean.
“Yes.” He took it back from me. “That would have been the final note—the dom’nant resolvin’ into a minor. But it don’t matter now.”
“Doesn’t it?” I said, stupidly enough.
“Not to me, sir. My Church—I’m a Fundamentalist, an’ I didn’t read ’em more than half the scenario—started out by disownin’ me for aspersin’ the National Honour. A bunch of our home papers got holt of it next. They said I was a ren’gade an’ done it for dollars. An’ then the ladies on the Social Betterment an’ Uplift Committees took a hand. In your country you don’t know the implications of that! I’m—I’m a one-hundred-per-cent. American, but—I didn’t know what men an’ women are. I guess none of us do at home, or we’d say so, instead o’ playin’ at being American Cit’zens. There’s no law with Us under which a man can be jailed for aspersin’ the National Honour. There’s no need. It got into the Legislature, an’ one Senator there he spoke for an hour, demandin’ to have me unanimously an’ internationally disavowed by—by my Maker, I presoom. No one else stood by me. I’d been to the big Jew combines that control the Movie business in our country. I’d been to Heuvelstein—he represents sixty-seven millions dollars’ interests. They say he’s never read a scenario in his life. He read every last word of mine aloud. He laughed some, but he said he was doin’ well in a small way, and he didn’t propose to start up any pogroms against the Chosen in New York. He said I was ahead of my time. I know that. An’ then—my wife’s best friend was back of this—folk at home got talkin’ about callin’ for an inquiry into my state o’ mind, an’ whether I was fit to run my own affairs. I saw a lawyer or two over that, an’ I came to a realisin’ sense of American Law an’ Justice. That was another of the things I didn’t know. It made me sick to my stummick, sir—sick with physical an’ mental terror an’ dread. So I quit. I changed my name an’ quit two years back. Those ancient prophets an’ martyrs haven’t got much on me in the things a Democracy hands you if you don’t see eye to eye with it. Therefore, I have no abidin’-place except this old caravan. Now sir, we two are like ships that pass in the night, except, as I said, I’ll be very pleased to tow you into Doncaster this morning. Is there anythin’ about me strikes you in any way as deviatin’ from sanity?”
“Not in the least,” I replied quickly. “But what have you done with your scenario?”
“Deposited it in the Bank of England at London.”
“Would you sell it?”