t student of morals, and
noting how they changed from age to age, he saw that if the discarded
crimes and abominations of one time or place could be transplanted to
other times and places, they would have great value as virtues. It was
only necessary to achieve immortality to make the venture practical. My
father did not achieve that for himself, as his arteries had started to
calcify before he discovered the immortality vitamin. But I fell heir to
his efforts and ideas, and I have little fault to find with the outcome.

"But of late business has not been so good. There is too much
intercommunication: the moral values of murders, for instance, were once
the main profit of the house, and we could not get enough to satisfy the
various moral ends for which murder was justified. But now times have
changed and privately initiated murder hardly classes as moral
anywhere."

"Then why do you not quit retailing, and trade in wholesale murders?"

The dealer shook his head sadly. "Impractical," he sighed. "I can not
deal with states, since being without conscience they have no awareness
of sin, no sense of repentance and hence have nothing to offer in
exchange."

In payment for the words of genius, which he left with the dealer, Gud
selected a little sin that he had been wishing to commit all his life,
and so he departed greatly pleased with his possession.

Chapter XVII

As Gud was passing up through hell he saw two souls which were not being
properly punished, but were strolling about as trusties of the place.
Gud approached them and asked: "Why are you two not being properly
punished?"

The first soul made answer and said to Gud: "We need none of these
grosser punishments such as increased temperature and breathing SO_{2},
which the ancients, who imagined hell, were able, in the limits of their
scientific knowledge, to imagine. The reason that we need no such crude
material punishments is because our spiritual suffering is quite
enough."

And Gud saw that the soul spake the truth, for the face of both of these
trusty souls were lined with seamy sorrow. As Gud looked upon their
sufferings he wondered why it was they suffered so, and he asked: "In
what did you two sin one by one that you should be punished two by two?"

And the second suffering soul replied, "I sinned because I believed too
vehemently that there was no god, and my companion here, because he
believed over confidently that there was a god."

"B