As he was sitting one night by a campfire waiting for the beans to boil,
Gud picked up a newspaper. Glancing over the advertisements, his eye
fell on this item:
PARTNER WANTED: Fine opportunity for experienced deity to share
control of fully evolved world. Will call at any address to
give details.--I. B. DEVIL.
This interested Gud, for his vacation was getting irksome. So he called
Fidu and let him sniff the advertisement and said: "Go get him!"
Fidu immediately hit the trail through the great darkness, baying
beautifully.
When the Underdog returned there followed at his heels a handsome Devil.
Gud shook hands with his caller and, removing the pot of beans from the
hot rocks in the center of the fire, asked him to be seated.
The Devil, throwing off his cape, sat down in the flames and poked his
feet comfortably into the glowing coals.
"You are very considerate," said the Devil, as he took out his pipe and
filled the bowl with brimstone; "most fellows of your ilk would let me
shiver or make me start my own fire."
"Don't mention it," said Gud. "You have, I believe, a partnership
proposition."
"That I have," returned the Devil, "but first may I ask how you came to
be out of employment?"
"I smashed everything," explained Gud, "and quit business. The place got
too big to be handled easily and I couldn't get efficient help. I
thought I would retire, or at least take a long vacation; but you know
how that goes, we are all creatures of habit."
"Yes," agreed the Devil, "many of us are like that. We try to do too
much, and get discouraged and throw up everything. However, I have
always been a hard worker and rather liked it."
"But you are out of a job now," said Gud significantly, "and before I
can talk business I will have to know why."
"Certainly," said the Devil, "I am out of employment for the very
excellent reason that my god died."
"What! You don't mean it?"
"Why not? You fellows don't want to take your immortality too seriously.
It's a necessary pose, of course, as a matter of business; but you see
my god was really very old. He had a premonition, too, and very
thoughtfully left me a letter of recommendation. Would you like to see
it?"
"Thanks, but I never look at letters of recommendation. I have written
too many of them. But tell me about this death of your employer."
"My partner, you mean," corrected the Devil. "Of course, I was only the
junior partner, but I had a share in the loot. As I said, this chap was
old and had won and lost many realms. I was with him on his final
venture, running a hell as usual, and a purgatory on the side--the heavy
end of the job, I call it, on that three-realm theology. This old god
had nothing to do but sit up there surrounded by his angels--yes, he
really had angels, old-fashioned place, you know--and wait for the
resurrection when I was to deliver up his share of the loot from
purgatory, and the Chief Arch was to blast the sleepers out of their
graves."
"That's a bit muddled," remarked Gud.
"I grant it, but we had it arranged that way. Well, we got everything
ready and I turned the crowd out of purgatory as per agreement; and the
Arch blasted out the sleeping souls, and they all went trooping into
heaven, demanding to see their god.
"It was a sorry affair, all those countless souls who had lived and
died, and some of them had suffered in purgatory for eons. And finally
they came trooping into heaven and no god in sight.
"They sent an angel down for me, for the situation was beyond those harp
playing satellites. I found that the old god had died peacefully in his
sleep, leaving the letter for me and a proper will drawn up, but he was
dead.
"I fixed up a double and set him on the throne to keep the crowd quiet
while I stood behind a screen to prompt him. But some disgruntled little
wing flapper betrayed us and the fraud got out. The crowd stopped
squabbling about their gowns and harps, and dropped their hymn books and
stared up at us.
"It makes me sad yet when I think about it. I have roasted them and
flayed them and boiled them without mercy; all that was nothing like
seeing the disappointed expression in the eyes of those poor souls, all
arrayed in their new celestial gowns and with harps in hand, staring
like little lost children up at a dummy on the throne, and wailing
because their god was dead!"
"When did all this happen?" asked Gud.
"A long while ago--like you, I've been on a vacation. The fact was that
experience gave me a distaste for my profession. But you know how it is.
We are all creatures of habit, as you say, and there are ups and downs
in all business. I feel now that it is about time I got back to
work--especially since I discovered this virgin world. With that we can
start all over, everything new, all our experience to help us, and the
likelihood of good luck this time by the law of averages."
"Right you are," agreed Gud, "there is nothing like work. A shoemaker
should stick to his last and die with his hammer in his hand. Yes, I
think I will consider your proposition. Where is this property you speak
of?"
"In the eighth plane."
"The eighth plane!" repeated Gud incredulously. "My dear fellow, there
are only seven planes!"
"That's just it; it's being in a place where it could not be explains
why it is still there."
"A fascinating tale," said Gud dubiously, "but how can mortals stay
rational and civilized if they do not know that we exist, or that there
are immortal joys and torments awaiting for them after they are through
with their brief span of mortality?"
"Now I can't answer that question as to theory, but I can report my
observation of the fact that they manage it very decently well."
"It seems incredible to me," sighed Gud.
"It doesn't to me," replied the Devil, "for if I were mortal I would
surely make the best of the life I had instead of pining and worrying
about another, which, as you know for yourself, is never quite up to
mortal expectations."
The Devil knocked the ash out of the bowl of his pipe on one of the
glowing rocks. "Naturally we haven't as much interest as you have in
keeping the superstition alive, since we have the dirty end of the deal.
But you know very well that you can't do business without us. It has
been repeatedly demonstrated that mortals quickly lose interest in those
one-sided theologies which, like their own Utopias, are insipid with
perfect goodness and boresome with joy. What pleasure could there be in
hoping to go to an eternal sunparlor without knowing that one's neighbor
was going to hell?"
"Yes, yes, I grant that argument, but this virgin world of yours is
hardly plausible."
"Holy comets!" exclaimed the Devil, springing up angrily, "do you doubt
my observation or my veracity?"
"Both," said Gud.
"We are wasting words. If you will step this way you can see for
yourself."
"Just a moment," said Gud, who then arose and set the pot back on the
hot rocks, and commanded Fidu to tend the fire and not to spill the
beans.
"Watch your step," called back the Devil. "There are some ugly holes in
the void beyond the seventh plane."
"How is that for a sphere?" spoke the Devil as he pointed out his find.
"Not half bad," admitted Gud, "but it's a little flat at the poles.
Strictly speaking, it is a spheroid."
"Don't quibble over details. And now, if you don't mind, I'll
materialize as a prosperous gentleman and you can be my cane-bearer."
"Not on your smoke," retorted Gud, "you advertised for a partner. We
materialize as equals or we stop right here."
"Have it your way. I'll be a king in exile, and you can be a bricklayer
on strike."
So in that guise they stepped aboard, taking care to alight on the north
pole to avoid the chance of an ugly fall.
"Which way, now?" asked Gud.
"South. We must obey their natural laws."
So they traveled south to the equator, passing along the seashore where
the thriving cities were. As Gud walked along between the Devil and the
deep blue sea he saw many things that were never intended for him to
see.
"Now," said the Devil, "we have seen the northern hemisphere, and the
southern one is just like it."
"I am quite interested," admitted Gud.
"Then let us step up the side of this volcano where we can both be
comfortable while we close our deal."
So they climbed the volcano and the Devil found a seat on a heap of
freshly crusted lava, and Gud sat down on a nearby glacier.
"First," began the Devil, "I would ask you if they had any souls?"
"Not a soul," admitted Gud. "One could see it in their eyes."
"And what about evidence of proprietorship?"
Gud picked up a rock and examined it critically. "I see no evidence of
design," he confessed.
"And how about their rationality?"
"That's what worries me. They are entirely too rational. If we try to
give them souls they might reject them."
"I can solve that," laughed the Devil. "Give the souls to the females
first."
"What!" exclaimed Gud, "that has never been heard of. To give them all
souls at once is quite as radical a move as I could consider."
"Well, I won't quibble over details. How long will it take you to fix up
your pace?"
"I should say it would take me an eon."
"Make it an epoch."
"Oh, very well."
"And how do you propose to divide the booty? Would you be satisfied with
predestination on a fifty-fifty split?"
"I would not," returned Gud decisively. "I consider such collusion to
suppress competition most unprofessional. I will give them a revelation,
you can plant seeds of doubt and temptation, and we will divide on the
usual tests of faith."
"But what about those that pass over without hearing the revelation?"
"I get them on the mercy clause," said Gud.
"That's too liberal," replied the Devil, "and you know it; they belong
to me by right of original sin. If you insist on taking them we will
call the whole deal off."
"Let's compromise on transmigration and reincarnate them till they do
hear my revelation. It will mean quite a saving in the stock of new
souls, for we will have to buy them. I was never good at designing
home-made souls; I could never get them of even size, and the big ones
were always knocking the little ones about."
"Very well," agreed the Devil, who was anxious to get going. "Order the
souls when you get ready."
Just then the volcano conveniently erupted and dematerialized the king
in exile and the bricklayer on strike.