Chapter XXIII

When Gud came upon the stupid girl she was sitting under an apple tree and weeping bitterly.

"Why do you weep?" asked Gud.

"I weep," replied the girl, "because I am in disgrace."

"Oh, I see, you are a fallen woman. Why don't you commit suicide?"

"But I am too young to die," moaned the girl, "and besides I haven't fallen yet. I am weeping because they tell me I am immodest."

"But why do they say you are immodest?" asked Gud, as he picked up a green apple and tasted it to see if it were ripe.

"Because," explained the girl, "I made me a bathing pettitcoat and went bathing in the pool. Someone had told me how to make it and how to sew lead sinkers in the hem of it. But I could only remember that it was something about fishing tackle, and I sewed corks in the hem instead of sinkers, and so when I went bathing, the skirt floated on the top of the water."

Gud stroked his beard thoughtfully. "I can put out the eyes of the fishes," he suggested.

"But they would still remember."

"I can kill the fishes," offered Gud.

"But the fishes might have souls, and besides, it wasn't so much what the fishes saw or even what the people thought the fishes saw."

"What was it?" asked Gud.

"The trouble was that my bathing suit was not in style."

"Oh, if that is all I will change the style.... There, go to the drug store and watch the clerks marking up the price of corks."

"Wonderful," cried the girl, "me to be the leader of styles--But I wore this week's styles last week--they will say I was too forward and therefore immodest."

Gud reached in a pocket of his robe and took out a patent calendar. This he turned back two weeks. "You should worry," he said, "I have made it week before last. You did not appear in the new-style bathing suit until next week. Does that fix everything?"

"Y-e-s," stuttered the girl doubtfully. "But what about the fishes?"

"I turned them back too," explained Gud. "But in all fairness, I ought to warn you about the lobsters. You see they go backwards naturally, and when I reversed the order of things just now I noticed that the lobsters went ahead two weeks--it is all a matter of relativity, you see."

"No, I don't see," blubbered the girl, "for I am very stupid," and she began to weep again.

"Why are you weeping again?" demanded Gud.

"Because I failed in my examination. I got everything wrong-wise and upse-turvy."

"Don't worry," said Gud, "I have changed all things, so that what you answered in your examination is the truth and has always been the truth and all contrary belief are false and always have been false."

"Thank you so kindly," smiled the girl, "but there is just one thing more. I can't understand the difference between an equilateral triangle and an isosceles triangle--and I just hate all triangles."

"Forget them," consoled Gud, "for I have destroyed all triangles."

Just then the girl noticed in alarm that the apples which had been on the ground were dropping up and alighting on the tree.

"Be not alarmed," said Gud, "I only changed the law of gravitation as it applies to apples."

And now they saw a procession coming through the orchard headed by the President of the Academy to proclaim the stupid girl as a virgin prophetess who had revealed to that world many great truths that had been hidden from the minds of the old masters. And when the old masters saw the apples that lay about the girl dropping up, one by one, to the tree above her, they became filled with holy zeal and abject worship and bowed down humbly before her and cried:

"Hail, hail, prophetess, for the end of the world cometh, and thou, in thy holy wisdom, must tell us what we should do to be saved."

"Oh, forget it till next week," said the girl, "and then you will see me in my new-style bathing suit."

And Gud departed from that place in great sorrow, for once again he saw a world confounded and worshiping a fool.