
sickly.
“One bird is dead,” Fred said.
“Huh?”
“Dead. The other bird killed it.”
Jim shrugged. “Yeah? Well, that ought to quiet things down on the old homestead.”
Grimacing, Fred said, “Oh, don't be so cold-blooded. If you had seen the poor little things showing such
malevolent hate, you wouldn't be so smart about it.”
But the other man was getting tired of the whole subject of canaries. He spoke his mind on the matter.
“Oh hell, get it off your mind. Two birds get to fighting in a cage, and there's a winner. So what? So if
you don't blatt out that you opened up the paper in the first place so they could get a look at each other
and start operations, there's nothing to it. Forget the whole thing.”
Fred was peering into the cage. “Hate,” he murmured. “I never saw such anger and hate in a bird. I didn't
know a canary could show such a thing.”
“Oh, shut up,” said Jim. “You and your angry canary!”
Chapter II
THE possession of a reputation had long ago saddled Doc Savage with a few handicaps. Out of
somewhere near a hundred and forty million U. S. inhabitants, not each one had heard of Doc Savage,
but the percentage who had was respectable. Impressive, too, considering the care which Doc had taken
to avoid publicity, or at least notoriety. Since the scientific genius of the man, his startling physical ability,
and his unusual Galahad-like occupation of righting wrongs and punishing evildoers, was not unknown in
quite a few odd corners of the world, perhaps the total terrestrial population of around two billion two
hundred million should be considered in the percentage table. The point was, that out of a number like
that, there were sure to be screwballs to make life irritating.
Doc Savage's work, the righting of wrongs and punishing of evildoers whom the normal fingers of law
enforcement did not seem to be able to grasp and crush, was itself enough out-of-place in a currently
war-cynical and distrustful civilization to make it a subject of disbelief, and on the tongues of the ignorant
or disillusioned, of ridicule. That sort of thing perhaps had been believable in the days of Galahad, but it
had become as unfashionable as tin pants, rescuing damsels in distress, and knighthood in general.
In plain words, the gag had been worked to death. Charlatans had used it. Too many politicians had
instigated wars to save humanity, until it was becoming pretty clear that what the world needed was
saving from the leaders who were continually getting control of the masses. The world was getting wiser,
or at least more cynical, about the whole saving business with its iron curtains and goose-stepping.
Do-gooding was out of style these days. A guy was supposed to have an angle. And if the angle wasn't
at once apparent, the thing to do was be disbelieving and hold an air of ridicule.
Doc Savage's “angle” wasn't apparent, and for a pretty good reason. He didn't have one. He did good,
righted wrongs, punished evildoers, did scientific work so completely for the benefit of humanity as a
whole that money-minded corporations, or publicity-minded “foundations" wouldn't finance it, and the
only return he received was inner satisfaction. It was well that he expected no other return, too.
Satisfaction was frequently all he got.