Who shall say that his love was not good For the dummy of cloth and wax and wood? I know that more curious things exist Than the love of a dreaming ventriloquist. He liked to perch her on his knee Combing her black hair lovingly, Then talk by the hour just as though She understood and ought to know. Her chatter merged with his and twice, I know, he struck her ... it wasn't nice. Repenting, he bought her costly things-- Gowns, rare necklaces and rings. One night they found him on the floor Stark dead ... each year I wonder more Why, killing himself, he never wrote Of the dagger he sank in her wooden throat. Chapter XLIV Now the fame of Gud's wisdom was broadcast about, so that important personages of other worlds came and laid their problems at the feet of Gud and begged of him solutions. Among them were two citizens of a world that was in dire distress. And one of these citizens was a Keeper of Morals of his sphere, and the other was the Vital Statistician. To Gud the Statistician said: "Our world is full, so that there is no more room for further population, and I have therefore ordered that the issue of birth permits be curtailed." "And in doing so," cried the Keeper of Morals, "you have ignored the law which bade us be fruitful and multiply." "That have I done," replied the Statistician, "because the facts have obsoleted the law. Our world is full, and what good would it do to issue more birth permits when there is no more room to be born into?" "But you should make room," protested the Keeper of Morals, "by issuing more death permits. Surely it is not as great a sin to die as it is not to be born." "But I insist," declared the Statistician, "that to issue more death permits than there are people ready to sicken and die would be to encourage suicide and murder. Do you countenance such unmoral ways of dying?" "Certainly not," retorted the Keeper of Morals, "suicide and murder are crimes. We must not encourage them, but neither must we discourage births, for we are commanded to be fruitful and multiply." "I agree with you," said Gud, addressing himself to the Keeper of Morals, "in your belief that it is wrong to discourage births, and also wrong to encourage deaths--for unrestricted birth and unpremeditated death are great moral principles and nothing must be allowed to interfere with them." "Exactly," replied the Keeper of Morals, "yet this Statistician is interfering by producing his unwelcome facts. He tells us that our world is full and that there is room in it for not a single being more." Gud turned to the Statistician and demanded: "Is this fact that you have produced a true fact or is it only a statistical fact?"