"Because," explained the girl, "I made me a bathing pettitcoat and went
bathing in the pool. Someone had told me how to make it and how to sew
lead sinkers in the hem of it. But I could only remember that it was
something about fishing tackle, and I sewed corks in the hem instead of
sinkers, and so when I went bathing, the skirt floated on the top of the
water."
Gud stroked his beard thoughtfully. "I can put out the eyes of the
fishes," he suggested.
"But they would still remember."
"I can kill the fishes," offered Gud.
"But the fishes might have souls, and besides, it wasn't so much what
the fishes saw or even what the people thought the fishes saw."
"What was it?" asked Gud.
"The trouble was that my bathing suit was not in style."
"Oh, if that is all I will change the style.... There, go to the drug
store and watch the clerks marking up the price of corks."
"Wonderful," cried the girl, "me to be the leader of styles--But I wore
this week's styles last week--they will say I was too forward and
therefore immodest."
Gud reached in a pocket of his robe and took out a patent calendar. This
he turned back two weeks. "You should worry," he said, "I have made it
week before last. You did not appear in the new-style bathing suit until
next week. Does that fix everything?"
"Y-e-s," stuttered the girl doubtfully. "But what about the fishes?"
"I turned them back too," explained Gud. "But in all fairness, I ought
to warn you about the lobsters. You see they go backwards naturally, and
when I reversed the order of things just now I noticed that the lobsters
went ahead two weeks--it is all a matter of relativity, you see."
"No, I don't see," blubbered the girl, "for I am very stupid," and she
began to weep again.
"Why are you weeping again?" demanded Gud.
"Because I failed in my examination. I got everything wrong-wise and
upse-turvy."
"Don't worry," said Gud, "I have changed all things, so that what you
answered in your examination is the truth and has always been the truth
and all contrary belief are false and always have been false."
"Thank you so kindly," smiled the girl, "but there is just one thing
more. I can't understand the difference between an equilateral triangle
and an isosceles triangle--and I just hate all triangles."
"Forget them," consoled Gud, "for I have destroyed all triangles."
Just then the girl noticed in alarm that the apples which had been on
the ground were dropping up and alighting on the tree.
"Be not alarmed," said Gud, "I only changed the law of gravitation as it
applies to apples."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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