ew like wooden members, until there was not a coin left and the last
piper turned away satisfied. He closed his eyes, for he was feeling
very weak; then he became conscious of the touch of a warm, friendly
hand on his wrist and he heard the voice of the old family doctor--the
one who had set his leg when he was a little shaver and had fallen off
the banisters, sliding downstairs.

"You will recover," it was saying. "A good rest is all you need.
Sometimes there is nothing so beneficial and speedy as the
old-fashioned treatment of bleeding a patient."

Some warm ashes dropped across the wrist of the Meanest Trustee and
scattered on the floor; his cigar had gone out.

The Executive Trustee dozed at his study table. For months he had been
working his brain overtime; he had still more to demand of it, and he
was deliberately detaching it from immediate executive consciousness
for a few minutes that he might set it to work again all the harder.

The Executive Trustee knew that he was dozing; but for all that it was
unbearable--this feeling of being bound by coil after coil of rope
until he could not stir a finger. A terrifying numbness began to creep
over him--as if his body had died. The thought came to him like a
shock that he had an active, commanding intelligence, still alive, and
nothing for it to command. What did people do who had to live with
dead, paralyzed bodies, dependent upon others to execute the dictates
of their brains? Did not their brains go in the end, too, and leave
just a breathing husk behind? The thought became a horror to him.

And yet people did live, just so. Yes, even children.
Somewhere--somewhere--he knew of hundreds of them--or were there only a
few? He tried to remember, but he could not. He did remember,
however, that he had once heard them laughing; and he found himself
wondering now at the strangeness of it. He hoped there was some one
who would always keep them laughing--they deserved that much out of
life, anyway; and some one who could understand and could administer to
them lovingly--yes, that was the word--lovingly! As for himself, there
was no one who could supply for him that strength and power for action
that he had always worshiped; he must exist for the rest of his life
simply as a thinking, ineffective intelligence. The Executive Trustee
forgot that he was dozing. He wrestled with the ropes that bound him
like a crazed man; he called for help again and again, unt