Page:Weird Tales volume 42 number 04.djvu/36

 djinn a number of things which he will immediately see that you get?"

"Of course," Connie said.

"Of course," said the djinn. "It his always been my policy to give the customer just a little bit more than the next man." He was jesting again, but his heart wasn't in it. He too had fallen under the spell of this strangely sobered mood that was upon us.

Before I could go on, Connie said, "Peter, I want to say something. It has always been obvious to me that you considered me a mental and emotional lightweight. No, don't bother to deny it," she said, when I would have protested. "I've always known it—here." And she touched her heart. "But, Peter, perhaps I'm really not so shallow as you feared. These wishes now, need not always be for my personal gratification, as you seem to fear. I could ask for the larger things, the things of the spirit. I could ask for peace, Peter, an end of war."

She looked up at me pleadingly, begging to be understood. How I wanted to take her, then and there, into my arms! But I waited, holding myself back. Again I tried to muster my arguments.

"An end of war?" I echoed slowly. "But, Connie, after every war hasn't the world been just a little bit better? Oh, not right away, but eventually? Man has always built from destruction. He seems to learn no other way. Even the atomic age was ushered in on a wave of destruction."

ONNIE looked shocked. "But, Pete, surely you're not advocating war as a desirable thing!"

"No, of course not! But man seems to be a funny animal, Connie. He never appreciates something handed him on a silver platter. I could be wrong, but I think wishing peace for him would only be like repairing a leak in a broken hose. He'll only break out some place else. Peace is something he will have to earn for himself, or it will never mean anything to him."

"Whether that's true or not," Connie said, "let's put that question aside for the moment. There are other things. Surely I could ask for an end of needless suffering? A cure for incurable diseases?"

"But, Connie," I objected, "you believe in some Greater Power, don't you?"

"Yes, of course."

"Then perhaps you'll concede that— It has an overall plan; that It, at least, knows there's a meaning to every terrible thing in life—a meaning that our small minds can't fathom?"

"Y—yes."

"Then who among us can say that any suffering is needless?"

Oh, call my arguments specious! Call this sophistry, if you will! I was on shaky ground, and no one knew it better than I. But I was desperate, I tell you, desperate!

Before we could resume, the djinn cleared his throat apologetically.

He said, "These wishes of the spirit are beside the point anyway, I think. I shouldn't care to arrogate to myself powers that belong more properly to what Pete calls a Greater Power. After all, I am not—" He broke off, bowing his head reverently.

"You mean," Connie said, "there are some wishes that even you could not grant?"

The djinn shrugged. "I do not know. I should not care, in any case, to put it to the test." And he said, with a cynicism that was tragic in its connotations, "Why can't you be like other humans? Contented with wishes for material things?"

For a minute, I think Connie was too shocked to answer. And then her little chin lifted stubbornly.

"Very well, then. Let's say for the moment that the djinn is right." She looked defiantly at me. "I can still wish for the material things."

But I was ready for that. "To what purpose?" I asked.

"But, Pete! You said yourself, only this afternoon, that a million dollars wasn't silly!"

"I spoke without thought." I went on to mention the names of three of the wealthiest people in the world. "You've seen their pictures in the papers recently, Connie. With all their money, did they look like happy people to you?"

"They had the unhappiest faces I've ever