" 'I would fain put an end to crime and vice amongst the Kortolians,' said the king, and went on to describe conditions in the kingdom and the failure of his previous efforts.
" 'Well now, ahem ahem, I have a theory about crime,' quoth the ghost. 'It is obvious to me that criminals are compelled to commit their felonies by want. Men steal to avert starvation. Men rape because they are too poor to afford lawful wives, or even the modest fees of harlots. Remove the cause—namely, the want—and you instantly end the crimes. I wonder that nobody else has thought for so simple a solution.'
" 'But how shall I alleviate their want?' asked the King.
" 'Simple again; give every convicted criminal a modest but adequate pension and turn him loose. That is logical, now is it not?'
"The king could see no flaw in Tsaidar's reasoning and so permitted Gloe to dismiss him. And he ordered that criminals, instead of being punished, should be given pensions. And so it was done.
"This pension scheme, however, had unexpected results. True, a few of the pensioners reformed, and some even became a credit to the state —like Glous, our leading poet, or Soser the shipping magnate.
"A larger number did nothing either very good or very bad. They settled down to loafing and amusing themselves in more or less harmless ways. What really astonished good King Filoman, however, was that many kept right on committing crimes when, being pensioned, they no longer had to do so.
"Furthermore, the amount of crime actually waxed as Filoman's subjects discovered that to be convicted was the best way to get a regular stipend from the treasury. People robbed and raped and assaulted all over the place and made no attempt to evade capture. Thus, two merchants accused each other of theft; the hatter said the antique dealer had stolen a dozen of his hats, whilst the antique dealer accused the hatter of making off with a costly vase. Even odder, each had his loot in plain sight in his own shop. It was plain to every one save Filoman the Well-Meaning and his ghostly minister that the twain had cooked up this scheme between them, to get on the pension rolls.
"When, during a seance with Gloe, Filoman complained of these unwonted events, Tsaidar's ghost would not admit any flaw in his logic. 'It must,' he said, 'be that the emoluments you pay your felons are not enough to relieve their want. Double all pensions at once, and you shall see.'
"Then so great became the demands on the treasury that Filoman was forced to borrow abroad and then to debase the currency to pay his promised stipends. Soon, Kortolian money contained so much lead and tin mingled with the silver, and copper with the gold, that no knowing person would accept it. The sound money from earlier times went into hiding, whilst all Kortolians sought to rid themselves of Filoman's counterfeits, as they were called. And soon all trade ground to a halt, for none would take the new money and none would part with the old. There were bread riots in Kortoli City and other distressing events.
"At length, King Filoman determined to seek advice from the living to find out what was wrong. He asked many of those arrested for crime why they had so conducted themselves. Some answered with glib lies. Some admitted that they wanted pensions, too. But one scarred old rogue with a missing ear, who had slain and robbed a merchant on the road, at last revealed to the king what was truly in the minds of many of his kind.
" 'You see, Your Majesty,' said the robber, 'it is not just the money. To sit at home and live on my pension were too dull to be borne. I should go mad with boredom.'
" 'But,' quoth the king, 'there are many worthy occupations, such as soldier or hunter or messenger, which would provide you with healthful activity and enable you to do good at the same time.'
" 'You do not understand, sire. I do not want to do good; I want to do bad. I want to rob and hurt and slay people.'
" 'Good gods, why should you wish that?' said the king.
" 'Well, sire, one of man's deepest desires is to put himself above his fellow men—to compel them to admit his superiority, is it not?'
" 'One might say so,' replied the king cautiously. 'But I seek to attain superiority by virtue.'
" 'You do, but I do not. Now, a living man is, in general, superior to a dead one, is he not?'
" 'Aye, it would seem reasonable to say so.'
" Then, if I slay a man, and I live whilst he dies, I am obviously his superior by the mere fact of being alive, am I not?'
" 'I never thought of that,' said the king, greatly troubled.
" The same,' said the scoundrel, 'applies to assault, robbery, and other deeds that I delight in. If I give something to a man, or accept a free gift from him, or barter things of equal value with him, that proves nought about who is the better man. But if I take from him that which is his, against his wish, I have proved that my power is greater than his. Every time I make another unhappy, without his being able to retaliate, I have proved my superiority.'
" 'You must be mad!' cried the king. 'Never have I heard so monstrous a philosophy!'
" 'Nay, sire, I do assure you that I am but a normal human being like yourself.'
" 'If you are normal, then I cannot be, and contrariwise,' said the king, 'for our views are as different as day and night.'
" 'Ah, but Your Majesty, I said not that we were alike! People are so various that there is no one normal kind, all others being lunatics and antic characters. And most folk have in them different urges, which pull them now one way and now the other. In you, the urge to do good is so much stronger than the urge to do evil that the latter can be neglected, whereas with me and many like me it is the opposite. But amongst the general, you will find, these motives are more evenly balanced, so that they do now good, now ill. And, when one of your subjects has grown to manhood with these urges in a certain proportion, I do not think you will change this proportion thereafter, no matter what you do to or for him.'
"The king sank back on his throne, aghast. At last he said: 'And where, my good murderer, did you learn to reason so philosophically?'
" 'When I was a boy, I went to school in Metouro under your esteemed minister, Tsaidar of Govannian, who was then not a disembodied spirit but a young schoolmaster. And now, sire, if you will summon your treasurer to put me on his pension roll—'
" 'I cannot,' said the king, 'because you have convinced me of the error of my whole scheme. I cannot call in the headsman to shorten you by the appropriate amount, as you deserve, because you have done me a favor by giving me a deeper insight into my fellow men. On the other hand, I cannot permit you to continue your villainies in Kortoli. So you will be given a horse, a small purse, and twenty-four hours to quit the land, on pain of death if ever you return.'
"And so it was done, not without some soul-searching on the part of Filoman, who felt guilty about turning this rascal loose on one of the neighboring states. He dismissed Tsaidar's ghost and paid off the witch Gloe, whereupon she cried out:
" 'Sire! I am bilked! These are those worthless adulterated coins you have been striking lately!'
" 'Well, the advice of your ghost proved equally worthless, so we are quits,' said Filoman. 'Now get along back to your cave and bother me no more.'
"And Gloe departed, muttering maledictions, although whether these had aught to do with the king's death in a riding accident some years afterwards is not known. And Filoman appointed Oinax his new minister, and for a while Kortoli returned to its former condition. But then King Filoman fell under the sway of the so-called holy man Ajimbalin, with results whereof I have already told you."
Jorian had inched closer to the princess, and now had an arm about her vast, bare torso. She put up her face to be kissed, then seized him in a grip of pythonic power.