Chapter LVII

As Gud strolled along trying to forget the past he stumbled over the soul of an old blind ghost who was sitting on a petrified memory and sentimentalizing over her woes.

"Pardon me," said Gud, "but why are you so blind that I could not see you?"

"I am blind," replied the old soul, "because I strained my eyes out looking at the moving pictures, and now I am very miserable because I can not see them."

"Oh, if that is all," answered Gud, "I will restore your sight. It will cost you nothing but a little praise and gratitude."

When the old soul received her sight she looked around the barren astral landscape and was sorely disappointed, for there were no moving pictures there; and she complained bitterly in her disappointment.

"I could make a motion picture for you if you would tell me how," offered Gud.

"That I will do gladly," cried the old soul, "but first you must have an author to write the scenario."

"That is easy," replied Gud. "There--I have created one. Speak to her, author, for the poor old soul was blind."

"So I see," answered the author, as he extracted a cigarette. "And she wants a story, I take it; but she has been blind and is probably illiterate, and can not read, and I never tell my stories as poets recite their verses--it is bad taste, you know."

"I will restore her literacy," offered Gud, who was in a miraculous mood, "and then she can read."

"It would be doing me no good," sighed the old soul, "for even if I could read the directions on patent medicine bottles because they are printed in so many languages, yet I could never read fiction stories on account of the quotation marks, and it's the pictures I want anyway."

"Oh, pictures," said the author, as he ignited his cigarette, "now that is a different matter; I create stories for the love of art, but moving pictures can not be created for the love of art, for there is no art in them to love."

"Since we are both creators," said Gud, "I don't like to dictate to you, so suppose we compromise. You write a poem for art's sake--as there is no other excuse for writing one--but put it in the form of a scenario."

"Now that is what I call clever!" exclaimed the author, and he whipped out his Corona and wrote the scenario forthwith.

What it was you shall never know, for movie scenarios could never get by heavenly censors without mutilation, and when the censors had done with this one there remained not even the mutilation. However, the author read it to the old soul.

"That is a fine scenario," cried she to Gud, "but you will have to make a director to make the picture out of the scenario."

So Gud made a director. He had never made one before but they are easily made, as they can be made out of most anything.

"Well, I see we have the scenario," remarked the director, when Gud had finished making him, "but it hasn't the proper ending."

"I am sorry," said the author, "but I didn't write a proper ending as I knew you would use your own anyway."

"I know his ending," cried the ugly old soul, "and it is very beautiful--it's the one where--"

"Shut up, you old fool," bawled the director, "don't you know you will spoil the suspense by telling the audience how it is going to end?"

"But in this case we have a real plot," said the author, "and it ought not to be mutilated--"

"Shut up, you conceited pup," howled the director, "and here, take your scenario and have it printed if you like. I don't need it anyway."

And so the author took the scenario and folded it and put it in his inside pocket and walked away, inhaling angrily on his last cigarette.

"Now," spoke the director, "as that infernal ass is gone we can get busy."

"What can I do?" asked Gud.

"Make the cast for me, pick out the sets and rig the props. But first I must have six beautiful girls. It is going to be an all-star cast and I want each of them as beautiful as she can be, yet distinctive, so the audience can tell which is which."

So Gud made six girls, all as beautiful as they could be, and yet all as different as wives are from concubines.

"Fine," exclaimed the director, as he pawed them over affectionately.

"I love you," said the girl with the Cupid's bow mouth.

"I loved him first," spoke the girl with the sorrowful eyes.

"But I love him most," cried the girl with the angel-child curls.

"But I love him like the flower loves the dew," wailed the girl with the human form divine.

"But I love him so that I could die for him," sobbed the girl with the very tender heart.

"Then die," shrieked the old-fashioned vampire, as she plunged a dagger into the very tender heart.

All the girls brought orange blossoms and laid them on the coffin and wept much in each other's arms, and the director renounced his professional ambitions and went back to his old job as market reporter on an undertaker's weekly.

"Oh, thank you so much," spoke the ugly old soul to Gud.

"For what?" asked Gud.

"For the beautiful sentiments of the picture," she replied.

"But that wasn't a picture," corrected Gud, "that was reality."

"What are you saying?" queried the old soul, "I was blind, you know, and didn't hear very well either."

"Oh, nothing," said Gud. "I am glad you enjoyed it." For he saw that she had taken reality for romance, which is a far more beautiful illusion than taking romance for reality. So Gud went quietly on his way.