Now Cruickshank was a loyal worker Who frowned upon the average shirker, And in the place where Cruickshank toiled The wheels of work were shrewdly oiled, And profits had a way of rising Which showed the firm as enterprising. Through years that numbered thirty-one Cruickshank hated the owner's son-- "Stool pigeon" was the name the boy Had given him with whoops of joy. In Cruickshank's breast ambition burned And so he lived and worked and earned, Robbed Paul and Peter, had no gout And made his family go without. Sly Cruickshank in his stealthy way Bought shares in the firm for a rainy day, Existing on a miser's dole For the hour when he would have control, Wander in and announce the doom Of the President's son in the President's room.... So Cruickshank labored and did not shirk Though his poor wife died from overwork. But finally came the day of days.... Sly Cruickshank asked for a lordly raise. When father and son had answered "No" Expecting old Cruickshank to go He shrieked the triumph of his soul: "You are both discharged--I'm in control----" The President looked at the President's son; And the son looked at his father's son In a mirror that hung on the wall nearby And carefully straightened his yellow tie. Old Cruickshank waited ill at ease And felt a trembling in his knees-- The President spoke: "Why, we've just mailed The notice that this firm has failed." Chapter XI After a long journey Gud came to a place where it looked as if it needed rain. So he sat down upon a cactus and took out his horoscope and consulted the stars. Then he made an elliptical ring around a new moon and hung the moon low in the sky. And Gud took a scarlet runner bean and put it in a pot and lit a fire of cactus thorns and set the pot to boil. When the thorns began to crackle, an arrogant savor arose from the pot, and the vapors of it filled the sky, and through the vapors the new-made moon shown red as the blood of saints torn by lions because of their faith. Gud blew his breath on the fire and it waxed hot as anger and the pot boiled over and quenched the fire. Gud reached his hand into the pot and drew out the bean and cut it into three halves. And the left half of the bean he ate, and the right half of the bean he cast into Hell, but the other half of the bean Gud planted beneath a flat stone that bore the footprint of a hero who had passed that way when the stone was but a drifting sand on a lonely shore.