Gerald said, “Oh!” He scratched his long chin a bit blankly. He approached the monster, and leaning over one forepaw, he read for himself in that black ledger the paragraph of the Sphinx. Then Gerald said, “But what comes next?” “Were I to answer that question you would be wiser than I. And of course nobody can ever be wiser than the Sphinx.” “But is that as far as you have yet written?” “It is as far as anybody has written,” said the Sphinx, “as yet.” “In all these centuries you have not got beyond that one paragraph?” “Now, do you not see my difficulty? I needed an opening paragraph which would sum up all things, so to speak, and all the human living which men keep pestering me to explain. And when I had written it there was not anything left over to put in the second paragraph.” “But, oh, dear me! This is materialism! this is flat sacrilege committed in the actual presence of a god! I am embarrassed, ma’am. I hardly know which way to look before the spectacle of such conduct. For you fill your page, with your ambiguous paragraph—” “Do you not be vexed unduly if you can find no meaning in this paragraph—” “—Which has not anything to do with my exalted duties in this world—” “This paragraph was placed here simply because there happened to be a vacancy which needed filling—” “But I am not a paragraph, ma’am! I am no less a person, I may tell you in confidence, than Fair-haired Hoo, the Helper and Preserver, the Lord of the Third Truth, the Well-beloved of Heavenly Ones, upon a journey,—quite incognito, and therefore unattended by my customary retinue,—toward my appointed kingdom. And I confess that to my divine mind your writing has not any valid significance—” “The foolish, therefore, will find in it foolishness, and will say ‘Bother!’—” “—And conveys no valuable lesson—” “The wise, as wisdom goes, will reflect that this paragraph was placed here without its consent being asked; that no wit nor large significance was loaned it by its creator; and that it will be forgotten with the turning of the one page wherein it figures unimportantly—” “Quite honestly, ma’am, I am not a paragraph! No, I assure you that I really am the Lord of the Third Truth, upon my way to rule over Antan. I am the predestined conqueror who will force that irreligious Master Philologist to refrain from any further evil-doing, and to turn over a new leaf—” “Do you turn the page forthwith, in just the care-free fashion of old nodding Time as he skims over the long book of life—” “Yes, yes!” said Gerald, smiling, “I was thinking you could bring in that bit, neatly enough, if I gave you the simile to start on. And I know, of course, how all you authoresses love to quote your own works. So now, ma’am, if I were to remark, in a half puzzled way, that I hardly know what to say about your irrational paragraph—” “Do you say either ‘Bother!’ or ‘Brother!’ as your wits prompt.”