"He died before my accession, naturally."
"—And John the Twenty-first says he thinks they lost count somehow, and that there never was any Pope John the Twentieth. He says you must be an impostor."
"Ah, professional jealousy!" sighed Jurgen: "dear me, this is very sad, and gives one a poor opinion of human nature. Now, my boy, I put it to you fairly, how could there have been a twenty-first unless there had been a twentieth? And what becomes of the great principle of papal infallibility when a pope admits to a mistake in elementary arithmetic? Oh, but this is a very dangerous heresy, let me tell you, an Inquisition matter, a consistory business! Yet, luckily, upon his own contention, this Pedro Juliani—"
"And that was his name, too, for he told me! You evidently know all about it, messire," said the young angel, visibly impressed.
"Of course, I know all about it. Well, I repeat, upon his own contention this man is non-existent, and so, whatever he may say amounts to nothing. For he tells you there was never any Pope John the Twentieth: and either he is lying or he is telling you the truth. If he is lying, you, of course, ought not to believe him: yet, if he is telling you the truth, about there never having been any Pope John the Twentieth, why then, quite plainly, there was never any Pope John the Twenty-first, so that this man asserts his own non-existence; and thus is talking nonsense, and you, of course, ought not to believe in nonsense. Even did we grant his insane contention that he is nobody, you are too well brought up, I am sure, to dispute that nobody tells lies in Heaven: it follows that in this case nobody is lying; and so, of course, I must be telling the truth, and you have no choice save to believe me."
"Now, certainly that sounds all right," the younger Jurgen conceded: "though you explain it so quickly it is a little difficult to follow you."
"Ah, but furthermore, and over and above this, and as a tangible proof of the infallible particularity of every syllable of my assertion," observes the elder Jurgen, "if you will look in the garret of Heaven you will find the identical ladder upon which I descended hither, and which I directed them to lay aside until I was ready to come up again. Indeed, I was just about to ask you to fetch it, inasmuch as my business here is satisfactorily concluded."
Well, the boy agreed that the word of no pope, whether in Hell or
Heaven, was tangible proof like a ladder: and again he was off.
Jurgen waited, in tolerable confidence.
It was a matter of logic. Jacob's Ladder must from all accounts have been far too valuable to throw away after one night's use at Beth-El; it would come in very handy on Judgment Day: and Jurgen's knowledge of Lisa enabled him to deduce that anything which was being kept because it would come in handy some day would inevitably be stored in the garret, in any establishment imaginable by women. "And it is notorious that Heaven is a delusion of old women. Why, the thing is a certainty," said Jurgen; "simply a mathematical certainty."
And events proved his logic correct: for presently the younger Jurgen came back with Jacob's Ladder, which was rather cobwebby and obsolete looking after having been lain aside so long.