"Can’t you understand?" he cried. "I had the same hopes of them that I had of you. Suppose we found on this planet not a trace of monopoly or greed; suppose we had found here a peace-loving, justice-serving people, with plenty to eat and wear, needing no laws to govern them, and all happy and contented. The moral effect upon you and the rest of our friends would have been uplifting. You would have seen, admired and coveted the same conditions for our own orb. A change would have been worked in you, and for the better. "That," he went on passionately, "is the full measure of my disappointment. So far from finding such conditions, Mr. Munn, you are immediately catalogued as a thief, and given a task commensurate with your supposed abilities—a task or robbery!" "But a righteous robbery," I averred. "Recovering stolen property and returning it to the rightful owner is a meritorious act." "We must call it so," he answered bitterly, "since so much hangs upon our joint attempt. But what a lesson for these poor, benighted people!" "The ability to get the stone is beyond them, and they call upon us," I pursued. "Their action is flattering, rather than otherwise. If we succeed, it means that we shall stand even higher in their estimation." "We, who ought to know better, are making ourselves living examples of successful thievery." "The end justifies the means, professor." "We must strive to think so." "I suppose Gilhooly has been catalogued, the same as you and I, and that he was found to stand so high in traction affairs that they——" "Let us not dwell upon poor Gilhooly." "He is just where he ought to be," I declared. "I only wish he had a glimmering of sense still left him in order that he might realize his position. The effect would be salutary." This frank expression of my views rather startled Professor Quinn. He walked back and forth, his hands clasped behind him and his head bowed in deep thought. "The indexograph is a most remarkable invention," he finally observed, "and would be of inestimable value on our native planet. The detection of crime would be an easy matter, and on the testimony of the indexograph alone justice could be meted out without the intermediate application of the courts. Furthermore, justice would never miscarry." "I hope," I exclaimed in a panic, "that I shall never live to see the day when the police officials of Terra are equipped with indexographs! It would prove a knockout blow for my profession. Every citizen would be tested, and his proclivities jotted down in black and white." "That would mean," expanded the professor, "that crime would be relegated to the limbo of lost arts! Before a lawless act could be committed, the artist in crime would be placed where the deed would be impossible." "That’s the way I figure it out, professor."