Chapter XXXIV

"A bear went over the mountain," sang the child (Gud stopped to listen, for the child had had its voice cultivated prenatally) "to see what he could see. A row of hanging skeletons, a swinging in the wind, was all the bear could see in front, and he could not see behind."

"See here," interrupted Gud, "you have the song mixed--what the bear saw was the other side of the mountain."

"Awh, I know," replied the child, "that was what the preteristic old bear saw, but I sing of the futuristic young bear."

Gud shook his head sadly. It made him feel archaic to come thus face to face with the younger generation in art and literature. Somehow he felt that there was something amiss in this new universe that seemed to have arisen Phoenixlike out of the ashes of nothing.

Gud turned from the child with the prenatally cultivated mind and went on his way sorrowfully. And as he walked he hummed softly to himself--"The old-time creation, the old-time creation, It was good for Unph and Godumph ... and it's good enough for me...."

"Come, come," monologued Gud--"I must not get retrospective--I destroyed it all--ashes to ashes and dust to dust."

As Gud trudged on, trying to shake this mood of a sentimental retrospection from him, he found the light waning and the ether about him turning grey and grim and gruesome.

Then like an avalanche of dead ravens, sable darkness came tumbling down upon him. But there were whitish outlines in the darkness, moving and swaying, and there were rattlings and clanking sounds, and eery whistlings.

Rachitic with fear Gud's knees bent beneath him and he sank down in the blackness and shuddered in his soul.

Before him, like a great grey army marching, the skeletons of all the mortal dead, of all the worlds and all the ages that had ever been, were filing by.

In measured time they marched, their gaunt legbones swinging in great sweeping strides, their backbones bending and creaking as they marched; while the winds between the worlds whipped through empty eyes and hollow skulls and made eery whistling sounds--and all the dry bones rattled.

So the material dead, in the empty mockery of marching, passed by Gud in vain review.

And Gud sat shuddering and alone and watched them--for eons and epochs, and epochs piled on eons of unmarked time.

After all the countless and infinitely innumerable swinging, swaying, clanking, dry-boned skeletons had marched by Gud, they started around again.

Gud knew that they were going around a second time, because he saw one pass, bearing before his bleached and grinning fact the glow of a good cigar.

There could be no mistake about it, for these were the bones of the only smoker who had ever believed that tobacco was as injurious as the non-smokers said it was!

Thus made aware that the show was being repeated on him, Gud realized that even the most gruesome and ghoulish sights and sounds became commonplace with repetition; and he became bored, and his fear died within him. So he arose and walked right through the marching mass of swinging, swaying, rattling, whistling, dry-boned skeletons, and out into the sunlight of a new day where he found Fidu digging up a freshly planted lawn in search of a bone he had buried on a golf course countless eons before.

"Come, come," said Gud, "let the dead bones stay buried--the future of eternal life is long enough without digging up the past."

Having dissuaded Fidu from his search for provender Gud offered him a portion of his own lunch.

"Do you remember," remarked Gud to the Underdog, as they sat munching their sandwiches, "the time I was on that little world back there--"

"Which one?" asked Fidu.

"The one I am talking about, silly--I ran into an earthquake. It shook things up rather badly and toppled over about half the houses, killing and maiming millions of mortals."

"What caused it?"

"I don't know, probably it was accidental--but that isn't important. What interested me was what those poor mortals thought caused it. As I was strolling through a town watching the relief committee at work, I happened to see people going into a steep roofed building, which being well constructed, had not fallen down. I joined the crowd and went in. One of their kind was standing on a box at the far end of the building and talking. I sat down with the others and listened to him.

"He was talking about the 'divine visitation.' For a moment I became self-conscious, thinking my incognito had been discovered. But I soon realized that he referred to the earthquake.

"His theory was interesting. He thought their silly little world had been shaken up by their divinity. I knew that he was mistaken, for I knew the chap who had that world in charge; he is a weak little god who could not shake up a good-sized island."

"For what reason did the mortals think your friend shook them up?" asked Fidu.

"The one who was talking had two theories about it. You see they had two kinds of folks in that world--one bunch was called 'sinners' and one was called 'righteous.' Plenty of both bunches were killed by the quake. But it seemed that the fellow who was talking, wanted the sinners killed and he was praising my friend for doing it. But his difficulty was in explaining the death of the righteous, whom I gathered were friends of his that had been in the habit of paying him to talk to them. There were a good many empty stalls in the room with black cloths on them, and some of the women in the crowd were weeping.

"Well, after the talker got through explaining that their deity had caused the earthquake for the purpose of killing the sinners, he had to admit that it also got a few of the righteous. He said that this was due to the 'mysterious working of the divine purpose' or some such vagary."

"Well, what of it?" asked Fidu.

"Nothing in particular, only it struck me as funny."

"Is that all?"

"About," said Gud--"but as I left that world, I took hold of its axis and gave it another shake."

"Did you know," said Fidu, "that the Copycat had been visiting?"

"What makes you think so?"

"Because there are five little copy kittens."

After which they journeyed on until they came to a wall. In this wall were two doors. Before the wall stood a great multitude and they stared at the two doors with fixed glassy eyes.

Gud turned and spoke to the multitude and said: "Why stare ye at the doors in the wall and durst not enter?"

"Alas, Great Gud," cried the multitude, as with one voice, "we wish not to enter the doors, but would only know which door the man entered."

"That I will find out for you," said Gud, and he stepped up and examined the knobs of the doors. Then he turned and bowed to the multitude, and turned yet again, and seizing the knob of one of the doors he swung it boldly open.

And behold, there stood a man-eating tiger, contentedly licking his chops, his belly with fat lover lined.

And Gud beckoned to the tiger which came out through the door and faced the multitude, and on the tiger's face there was a faint fragrance of a smile.

And the tiger bowed to the multitude, and Gud also bowed with the tiger.

And from the eyes of the multitude the glassy stare faded, and they turned and walked away, and some spoke exultant words to the others.

"But," asked Fidu of Gud, as they again went on their journey, "how did you know which door to open--did you smell the blood?"

"No, you hundopomorphic canine fool, I looked for finger prints on the knobs of the doors."