d yet I am weeping
because he is dead, and you would weep, too, if you were in my boots.
You see, I am the hangman and I hanged that man only a fortnight ago."

"Ah, ha!" said Gud, "you hanged an innocent man!"

"Indeed I did not! And if I wept over every innocent man I have hanged,
I would never have time to clean the scaffold. But I hanged that man for
a petty crime that was never committed."

"And you weep?" asked Gud.

"I weep," said the hangman, "because since I hanged him, we have
discovered that he was guilty of a great crime for which I hanged
another man a year ago."

"Then you are weeping for the other man?"

"No, no!" retorted the hangman, growing quite angry, "I am weeping
because, having hanged this man for a petty crime which was never
committed, I cannot hang him now for I have already hanged the other
man."

"At last I understand," said Gud, greatly relieved, "and I think I can
help you out. Go get your rope and call your citizens!"

Chapter LXI

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,