"Shut up, you old fool," bawled the director, "don't you know you will spoil the suspense by telling the audience how it is going to end?" "But in this case we have a real plot," said the author, "and it ought not to be mutilated--" "Shut up, you conceited pup," howled the director, "and here, take your scenario and have it printed if you like. I don't need it anyway." And so the author took the scenario and folded it and put it in his inside pocket and walked away, inhaling angrily on his last cigarette. "Now," spoke the director, "as that infernal ass is gone we can get busy." "What can I do?" asked Gud. "Make the cast for me, pick out the sets and rig the props. But first I must have six beautiful girls. It is going to be an all-star cast and I want each of them as beautiful as she can be, yet distinctive, so the audience can tell which is which." So Gud made six girls, all as beautiful as they could be, and yet all as different as wives are from concubines. "Fine," exclaimed the director, as he pawed them over affectionately. "I love you," said the girl with the Cupid's bow mouth. "I loved him first," spoke the girl with the sorrowful eyes. "But I love him most," cried the girl with the angel-child curls. "But I love him like the flower loves the dew," wailed the girl with the human form divine. "But I love him so that I could die for him," sobbed the girl with the very tender heart. "Then die," shrieked the old-fashioned vampire, as she plunged a dagger into the very tender heart. All the girls brought orange blossoms and laid them on the coffin and wept much in each other's arms, and the director renounced his professional ambitions and went back to his old job as market reporter on an undertaker's weekly. "Oh, thank you so much," spoke the ugly old soul to Gud. "For what?" asked Gud. "For the beautiful sentiments of the picture," she replied. "But that wasn't a picture," corrected Gud, "that was reality." "What are you saying?" queried the old soul, "I was blind, you know, and didn't hear very well either." "Oh, nothing," said Gud. "I am glad you enjoyed it." For he saw that she had taken reality for romance, which is a far more beautiful illusion than taking romance for reality. So Gud went quietly on his way. Chapter LVIII And Gud overtook a thief who had stolen an ocean and loaded it into a wagon which he had hitched to a star. The thief was making a poor getaway, for the wagon was leaking badly and was dropping clues at every step. To avoid being drowned in the drippings, Gud turned into an unexplored dimension, but before he could get his bearings he was run down by an insane comet collector, who was madly chasing a comet that was buzzing dangerously near an incandescent sun--so hot that its nearest molecules were farther apart than the hearts of a bigamist's wives.