"I think," said the small boy, "that he's got some good in him somewhere, and I know he's dead gone on my Miss Ferris. I think he's ashamed o' some o' the things he's done." Mr. Lichtenstein considered this at some length. Then he said: "Well, that's possible. But it's an absolutely new idea to me. Blizzard _ashamed_? Hum!" XXXI "True that policemen take money in exchange for protection? True that they practise blackmail and extortion? Of course it's true. Whenever a big temptation appears loose in a city half the people who get a look at it trip and fall. Oh, I'd like to reform this city, Miss Barbara--and this country. I'd like to be dictator for six months." "Who wouldn't?" said Barbara. "But what would you do? Where would you begin?" "I should be drastic at first," said the legless man, "and kind later. I'd begin," he went on, his eyes smiling, "with a general massacre of incompetents--old men with too little money, young men with too much--old maids, aliens, incurables, the races that are too clever to work, the races that are too stupid, habitual drunkards, spreaders of disease, the women who abolished the canteen, the women who wear aigrettes. After that I should destroy all possibilities of graft." "How?" asked Barbara. "Why," said he, "the simplest way in the world--legalize the business that now pays for protection. There would be no more of them than there are now, and they could be regulated and kept to confined limits of cities. Don't blame the police for graft: blame all who believe that human nature can be abolished by law. But," and this time his whole face smiled, "I shall never be dictator. The thing to do is to start a new country, and make no mistakes." And he proceeded, sometimes seriously but for the most part whimsically, to outline his model republic, while Barbara worked and listened, sometimes with amusement, sometimes with a sense of being uplifted and thrilled by the man's plausible originality. Since she had but the vaguest recollection of history, and none whatever of economics, it was easy for the man to play the constructive statesman. Nor were his schemes always foolish and illogical, since the book of human nature had been always in his library, and of all its volumes had been most often read. "Ah!" said the legless man at last, "if I were younger, and whole!" Whenever he referred to his maimed condition Barbara, to whom it was no longer physically shocking, was uncomfortable and distressed, changing the subject as swiftly as might be. But now, stopping her work short off, her hands hanging at her sides, she began to speak of the matter.