"But for that I charge money," said the fortune-teller.

"Why?" asked Gud.

"Because, I know what is going to happen."

"So do I," said Gud.

"Liar!" cried the fortune-teller. "If you knew what was going to happen, and had any insight whatsoever into future events, you would not be standing idly here, for you would be in the Street."

"Thanks for the suggestion," replied Gud, "I will go there immediately."

When Gud reached the Street he found many bulls there and bears and lambs, and men who were busy watering their stock. And Gud found there also a private secretary who was watching the tape. And Gud said: "Why do you watch the tape with eager eyes?"

And she answered and said to Gud: "Because I wish to know what figures are on the tape as quickly as any one else."

"And how would you like to know more quickly?"

"Indeed," she cried, "if one could, he would soon own the earth."

"It is easy," said Gud. "All you have to do is to read these figures before they appear instead of afterwards."

"Can you do that?"

"Why certainly! It is easy to read the future, if you know how."

And so Gud showed her how to read the future, and she showed Gud how to cash in on the readings, and presently they owned the earth.

Chapter LII

He loads the dice, scratches the cards, Hoists us up by our own petards; And when low music thrills the banquet halls, His shadow like a silent spectre falls In grotesque imagery upon the walls.

A mad child left an empire's might The kingdom of the day and night And as he babbles on the palace floor, He listens to the silver thunder roar Like troubled seas upon some distant sh.o.r.e.

With froth upon a sensual lip, He sinks in play some crowded ship.

Then lightly in an idle mood of mirth As though it were a trinket of no worth Down starry skies he flings some living earth.

Life's roulette table stops for him To any cackling vagrant whim.

His own police are venal, full of doubt; Indeed the cheapest little racetrack tout Knows more what sportsmanship is all about.

His gold face and his jet black hair The jewels his madness makes him wear.

His laws, a madman's irony The moon his mask above the sea Some morning he will turn his vacant eyes And see the sun with jealous new surprise And on the following day it will not rise.

Chapter LIII

And when the last sound had gone howling by and tumbled into the bottomless pit of silence, Gud held his breath, and even Fidu ceased to breathe and listened ... and listened for the echo that was still ...

and it was as quiet as the missing link, as silent as a broken heart, as mute as a withered violet in a virgin's dream.

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, pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.sed 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.