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Author of "Adventure of Souls"
WITH Phantom Dick backing across the tiled floor of the National Bank, smoke curling lazily from the end of his pistol barrel, the echoes still ringing in the dome of the spacious banking establishment while gongs on the police patrol clanged in the canyons of the financial district, would you dare suggest to the bank cashier, sprawled on the floor in a pool of his life's blood, that Phantom Dick was made of the stuff of dreams?
Certainly not. But if you have studied the human being all of your life you will have learned much and there will be one thing to puzzle you: there goes the man down the street, a wonderful machine of flesh, blood and bone, undoubtedly the greatest thing of creation. If he is a friend of yours he will stop, smile, extend his hand and speak to you. That is true but—ah, here's the rub!—he gets sick and dies.
Now, you look upon the man. Even the masters of medicine and surgery will tell you that you look upon the same man. He is all there. Blood, bone and flesh. But he will not get up, he will not speak to you, he will not shake your hand, he will not smile, he will not look at you. Why?
The medical experts will tell you that the man is dead. Everyone who looks upon the dead man will say "he is gone." What do they mean by that? Is he not in plain view? Have the medical men not said that it is the same man, nothing missing? But his small son, three years old, who has never heard of the thing called a man's soul, will say "Daddy's gone." What does he mean? Who told him?
Now, listen to the story of Richard Stafford, the dreamer, and Phantom Dick, the thief. You be the judge.
Richard Stafford was a dreamer. He taught himself to dream; when he was a boy the dreams came naturally from eating too much before he was chased off to bed, and breaking the laws of nature generally. The one peculiar thing about Richard's dreams was that they were, as a rule, pleasant dreams. He always awoke before the lion or tiger snatched him and he came to the point where he found extreme delight in the adventuresome land of Nod. He never dreamed of muddy streams of water, snakes, lizards and the like; his dreams were of roses, beautiful valleys, babbling brooks, birds and (when he grew older) pretty women.
