e road. They denied the matter-of-fact Fidu, and said he was only
an illusion of the non-existent spiritual mind and hence could have no
existence, material or immaterial.

Even when Gud took the material dog to their place of worship and had
him bark at the service, they still argued that the material Fidu was
non-existent.

Gud was a little crest-fallen at his inability to convert the
Materio-Spiritists, and yet the more he argued with them, the more
doubtful he became of his own convictions. In fact, he became so
confounded that he forgot what his convictions were, and was not sure
whether he was a ghost or not, or whether the material dog was real or
imaginary.

Finally, to settle his doubts, Gud decided to kill all the ghosts and
see whether they would be reborn as material beings or disappear
altogether. When he proclaimed his intention there was much rejoicing in
the ranks of the Materialists, who thus saw the fulfillment of their
faith.

As the day of the spiritual death approached there was a great revival
of faith, and much repentance and divers preparation to assume the
material role.

Gud was a little puzzled as to how to kill so many ghosts at once.
Earthquakes and floods and all that sort of thing were clearly
inadequate, but he recalled that the crowing of a cock was very
destructive to ghostly life. So he sent Fidu back to the last material
realm they had passed, to retrieve a cock which could crow most lustily.

The cock arrived amid a vast darkness, and Gud prepared a great light,
at the sight of which the cock crew mightily--and every ghost died of
fright.

As the cock was pedigreed, Gud sent Fidu back to restore it to its
owner, while he sat himself down to wait for the appearance of the
material beings.

None appeared.

After a while Gud grew tired of waiting.

The place was very still and very dark for the wall of light was dark on
the inside. In spite of his own ghostly being Gud found that he was
getting nervous. He had creepy sensations up and down his spine--

This is a flunk. Ghosts of the ghosts are too much for my imagination.
It was Hersey's idea anyway. When you kill a ghost, of course you would
have a ghost of a ghost to take its place, and one ought to be able to
imagine it. But if you kill that, then you should have the ghost of a
ghost of a ghost, and that is straining the imagination to its cracking
point. And if you kill that then you should have the ghost of a ghost o