When he heard about it, J. H. paced up and down and tore his hair and threatened to fire Charlie; but some of the rest of us got him calmed down and back into his office. We caught the pictures in our final street edition, picked the pages up for the early runs next day, and the circulation boys were pop-eyed for days at the way those papers sold.
The next day, after the worst of the excitement had subsided, the Barnacle and I went down to the corner to have ourselves a couple. I had never cared too much for the Barnacle before, but the fact that we’d been fired together established a sort of bond between us; and he didn’t seem to be such a bad sort, after all,
Joe was as sad as ever. “It’s them brownies,” he told us, and he described them in a manner no one should ever use when talking of a brownie. “They’ve gone and made everyone so happy they don’t need to drink no more.”
“Both you and me, Joe,” said the Barnacle; “they ain’t done nothing for me, either.”
“You got your job back,” I told him.
“Mark,” he said, solemnly, pouring out another. “I’m not so sure if that is good or not.”
It might have developed into a grade-A crying session if Lighthing, our most up-and-coming copy boy, had not come shuffling in at that very moment.
“Mr. Lathrop,” he said, “there’s a phone call for you.”
“Well, that’s just fine.”
“But it’s from New York,” said the kid.
That did it. It’s the first time in my life I ever left a place so fast that I forgot my drink.
The call was from one of the papers to which I had applied, and the man at the New York end told me there was a job opening in the London staff and that he’d like to talk with me about it. In itself, it probably wasn’t any better than the job I had, he said, but it would give me a chance to break in on the kind of work I wanted.
When could I come in? he asked, and I said tomorrow morning.
I hung up and sat back and the world all at once looked rosy. I knew right then and there those brownies still were working for me.
I had a lot of time to think on the plane trip to New York; and while I spent some of it thinking about the new job and London, I spent a lot of it thinking about the brownies, too.
They’d come to Earth before, that much at least was clear. And the world had not been ready for them. It had muffled them in a fog of folklore and superstition, and had lacked the capacity to use what they had offered it. Now, they tried again. This time we must not fail them, for there might not be a third time.
Perhaps one of the reasons they had failed before – although not the only reason – had been the lack of a media of mass communications. The story of them, and of their deeds and doings, had gone by word of mouth and had been distorted in the telling. The fantasy of the age attached itself to the story of the brownies until they became no more than a magic little people who were very droll, and on occasion helpful, but in the same category as the ogre, or the dragon, and others of their ilk.
Today it had been different. Today there was a better chance the brownies would be objectively reported. And while the entire story could not be told immediately, the people could still guess.
And that was important – the publicity they got. People must know they were back again, and must believe in them and trust them.
And why, I wondered, had one medium-sized city in the midwest of America been chosen as the place where they would make known their presence and demonstrate their worth? I puzzled a lot about that one, but I never did get it figured out, not even to this day.
Jo Ann was waiting for me at the airport when I came back from New York with the job tucked in my pocket. I was looking for her when I came down the ramp and I saw that she’d got past the gate and was running toward the plane. I raced out to meet her and I scooped her up and kissed her and some damn fool popped a flash bulb at us. I wanted to mop up on him, but Jo Ann wouldn’t let me.
It was early evening and you could see some stars shining in the sky, despite the blinding floodlights; from way up, you could hear another plane that had just taken off; and up at the far end of the field, another one was warming up. There were the buildings and the lights and the people and the great machines and it seemed, for a long moment, like a table built to represent the strength and swiftness, the competence and assurance of this world of ours.
Jo Ann must have felt it, too, for she said suddenly:
“It’s nice, Mark. I wonder if they’ll change it.” I knew who she meant without even asking.
“I think I know what they are,” I told her; “I think I got it figured out. You know that Community Chest drive that’s going on right now. Well, that’s what they are doing, too – a sort of Galactic Chest. Except that they aren’t spending money on the poor and needy; their kind of charity is a different sort. Instead of spending money on us, they’re spending love and kindness, neighborliness and brotherhood. And I guess that it’s all right. I wouldn’t wonder but that, of all the people in the universe, we are the ones who need it most. They didn’t come to solve all our problems for us – just to help clear away some of the little problems that somehow keep us from turning our full power on the important jobs, or keep us from looking at them in the right way.”
That was more years ago than I like to think about, but I still can remember just as if it were yesterday.
Something happened yesterday that brought it all to mind again.
I happened to be in Downing Street, not too far from No. 10, when I saw a little fellow I first took to be some sort of dwarf. When I turned to look at him, I saw that he was watching me; he raised one hand in an emphatic gesture, with the thumb and first finger made into a circle – the good, solid American signal that everything’s okay.
Then he disappeared. He probably ducked into an alley, although I can’t say for a fact I actually saw him…
But he was right. Everything’s okay.
The world is bright, and the cold war is all but over. We may be entering upon the first true peace the human race has ever known.
Jo Ann is packing, and crying as she packs, because she has to leave so many things behind. But the kids are goggle-eyed about the great adventure just ahead. Tomorrow morning we leave for Peking, where I’ll be the first accredited American correspondent for almost thirty years.
And I can’t help but wonder if, perhaps, somewhere in that ancient city – perhaps in a crowded, dirty street; perhaps along the imperial highway; maybe some day out in the country beside the Great Wall, built so fearsomely so many years ago – I may not see another little man.