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Harry?”
    â€œImport-export.” He shook a cigarette from a package, dug in a pocket for matches.
    â€œDo you know the chief product I import?”
    â€œNow how would I know that?” He found the matches, tore one from the packet and struck it.
    â€œHeroin.”
    Harry’s hand remained in air, the match flickering.
    â€œLight your cigarette, Harry,” said Kurt Gresham, smiling. “You’ll burn your fingers.”
    He lit the cigarette, carefully deposited the charred match in a shiny jade ash tray. “Heroin?” he said. My God, he thought, my God.
    â€œYou sound shocked,” said the fat man, still smiling.
    â€œHow should I sound, Gresham? Amused?” He jumped up.
    The millionaire folded his hands comfortably. “You’re so young, Harry. You have so much to learn. No, sit down, please. I want you to hear me out.”
    â€œI’ve heard all I want to hear!”
    â€œWill it hurt you to listen for a few minutes? Please. Sit down.”
    â€œAll right.” Harry flung himself down. “But if you think I’m going to tie myself up to a dope racketeer—! I know what narcotics addiction does to the human body. And I have some idea of how you slugs work. Giving out free samples to high school kids through your pushers, getting them hooked, then pushing them into a life of crime to get the money for their daily fixes—”
    â€œOh, my, Dr. Brown, you do know a lot, don’t you?” said Kurt Gresham, the whole globe shaking silently. “You know it all. Shall I tell you something, Dr. Brown? You don’t know anything . Not about me, anyway. Not about my kind of narcotics operation.”
    â€œAnd what kind would that be?” Harry sneered. “Philanthropic?”
    â€œNo,” said the millionaire, “but I perform a social service just the same.”
    â€œSocial service!” Harry choked.
    â€œSocial service,” said Gresham, nodding. “Have you any idea how many hundreds of thousands of habitual users of narcotics in this country are not high school children who were hooked by unscrupulous pushers and dealers? are not degenerates? are not beatniks out for kicks? are not the dirt of society? My clients are all upright, respectable, useful and, in many cases, distinguished people who, in one way or another—a lot of them through illness—became addicted to drugs, just as you’re addicted to that nicotine you’re inhaling right now. I don’t sell to criminals, Harry. I have no connection with the dope rackets or racketeers. I’m a maverick operation. A specialist, you might say, with a specialized trade.”
    â€œOf all the rationalizations—!”
    â€œRealism, Harry. I’m preventing the proliferation of criminals.”
    â€œBy engaging in the criminal dope traffic!”
    â€œNo; by providing narcotics rations to those respectable people who need them in order to continue to lead useful, respectable lives. If not for me, they’d have to traffic with the criminal element—buy inferior drugs, drastically cut to produce a bigger volume and profit—become prey to underworld blackmail. If not for me, Harry.”
    â€œOh, so now the supplying of junk is to be considered an act of benevolence? Is that how you’d like me to think of you? As a humanitarian?”
    â€œIn a way. Basically, I am a businessman in a large and profitable business. But I’m no less a humanitarian than the successful publisher who makes a profit selling Bibles.”
    â€œThat’s one hell of a comparison!”
    â€œAs good as any. Psychiatrists think so, the higher echelon of welfare workers think so, the government of England thinks so.”
    â€œNothing you can say—”
    â€œIn Britain an addict is treated not as a criminal, but as a sick man, which is what he is. He needn’t deal with criminals there, or become a criminal himself in order to