Chapter LIV

Gud had traveled many infinite distances since he had seen any sign of matter or mind or spirits. In this region things were not merely dead! they were absolutely non-existent, and Gud became a trifle lonesome.

He was in his ghostly incognito, for he always traveled lightly in vacuous and doubtful regions. To sojourn as an immaterial spirit among material beings gives one a sense of power, for what could be more glorious than to see without eyes, hear without ears, ring bells without hands or kick over tables without feet? But it is a very dull business to journey along as a spirit in absolute nothingness.

Indeed it is a business as dull as a Latin conjugation. So Gud now realized that he was sensing something with his seventh sense, which was more acute than the canine instinct of the Underdog and almost as unerring as a woman's intuition.

This seventh sense told Gud that he had entered a spiritual realm, and he became aware of a black ghost of a white cat with one ghoulish unseeing eye, sitting on the shadow of a back fence echoing a diabolical howl.

Gud could not hear the ghost cat howl, but he knew that it was howling because with his seventh sense he felt the vibration of its howl quivering through the impalpable and ghostly ether.

The howl of the ghost cat petrified Gud's gall, for he sensed that the creature had nine notches on its tail; hence would never live again, and had nothing to howl about.

So Gud picked up a stone and threw it at the ghost cat, but he aimed high, and the stone, passing through a bush of credulity, killed two birds of promise; whereupon the ghost cat ceased to howl.

As Gud went on he became aware of ghosts strolling about among the ruins of nothing.

And Gud said to the ghosts: "Where is your king?"

And the ghosts replied to Gud: "We have no king."

"Then," said Gud, "I would be told of your form of government."

But the ghosts answered: "Our government has no form because we have no government."

"Then," said Gud, "I would meet your doctors or lawyers or great and famous ghosts."

And they made answer that they had none.

"Then," said Gud, "I would be told of your religion and learn of your faith."

Said the ghosts: "We have no religion and no faith, for we are too immaterial to sin; and are therefore without fear of death, and thus need no religion and no faith."

"Then," said Gud, "this is a dull place. What do you call it?"

Replied the ghosts, who had a very long time to live: "We have no name for the place, but we are very happy here."

When Gud learned that this place was nameless, he whistled for his Underdog and they went on and passed through an impalpable fog of etheric vibrations, and over a great gulf of sublimated emptiness, and through a dark forest of neglected memories, and across a sandless desert swept by a breathless wind.