Chapter XLVI

Then the Skeptic related to Gud some of the gossip of the place. "We have here," said he, "a powerful sheik who rules over this oasis in the Desert of Righteousness. The sheik being old, had twenty young wives; and each of these wives had a lover. Came a time when the old sheik went on a journey but returned a day before he was expected. Finding only one of his wives in the harem, he called the masons and walled up the windows and doors of the place, and that is why the nineteen pretty murderers are hanging in a row."

"But," said Gud, "the story seems incomplete."

"Not at all," replied the Skeptic, "it is only that you do not understand our laws and customs. These things are relative, you know...."

"If you will listen well," spoke up the Cryptic, "I will expound relativity to you. Now, if a man should buy a lot on time and the lot had but two dimensions, then if time should be destroyed, could the real estate agent justly demand payment for the lot?"

"Why, certainly," answered Gud. "Is not the Impossible Curve in the Nth dimension?"

"But I have not told you yet," interrupted the Skeptic, "what the old sheik did. You see, he felt so remorseful that he endowed a School of Theological Mathematics, and each year he grants a doctor's dilemma to the young man who can most nearly solve the problem of the trinity."

"What is the solution?" asked Gud.

"We do not know," replied the Skeptic, "for as yet no man has ever solved it."

"But I was explaining relativity to our host," cried the Cryptic, "and you interrupt me with this trifling gossip. Now, if a mass of silence traveling at the speed of light, should be deflected by a caricature of a phantom magnetic force, would the energy engendered--"

But at that moment the keeper of the caravansary appeared in the doorway and looked upon Gud questioningly. Gud nodded to him approvingly, whereupon five beautiful damsels entered dancing to flats and sharps, and flute and cymbal.

So the discussion of relativity was forgotten, as all things of the intellect are forgotten, when damsels young and beautiful dance to lute and timbrel.

After there had been much joyous dancing, the Cynic plucked at Gud's sleeve and asked:

"Who be these beautiful damsels, who dance so divinely, and whence came they?"

And Gud made answer and said: "These damsels be the daughters of the Pope, but I know not whence they came."