A great storm of the far-flung astronomical elements arose without cause. The like of it had never been before nor since and it disobeyed all laws, both known and unknown, natural and unnatural. Gud was sore puzzled because the storm was without cause but not without effect. He ran hither and here and darted thither and yon, and in the turmoil he was separated from Fidu, his faithful Underdog.
The impalpable ether that fills all space became palpable and vibrated and palpated with incommensurate waves; and the non-popitent nether which is beyond all space became popitent and gyrated and popitated with calculatious ostenulations.
Throughout the abysmal reaches of indefinite dimension the far-flung, flaming suns were exploding with blinding flashes and deafening roars, and their molten fragments were spewing and spilling this way and that, knocking constellations asunder and painting cold, dead worlds with liquid fire and blazing splendor.
Comets fell, dragging their tails behind them, twisting and writhing as if in pain. And the stars were falling, too. Meteors pattered as rain upon the roof of heaven. Broken nebulae whipped along as snow-flakes driven of the northwest wind. Pleiades smashed like hail through the windows of space. Vile smelling gasses blew about all the interstellar void and vastness. Tornadoes and mighty cyclones and vortices torned and cycled vorted.
All this frightened Gud, so that he sought for shelter from the storm. Just then a little world came rolling by, and it wabbled as it rolled. It did not look very safe, but it was solid underfoot. Gud boarded it and found himself before a tiny cabin on the wabbling world. The cabin was built of old cracker boxes and looked frail as a ten-cent toy; but there was no other cover at hand, so Gud knocked on the cabin door to ask for shelter.
When no one answered, Gud entered and closed the door behind him. There before him sat a dear little widow knitting a bellyband for someone else's baby. She was so deaf she could not hear quinine, and so blind she could not see a house afire, and had catarrah so badly that she could not smell a herring; but for all that she was a very good cook.
Gud addressed her in telepathy, saying: "I wonder if you would make me a cake?"
And the woman replied by thought transference and answered: "Alas, I cannot make you a cake today, for I have but one hen and she has already laid her one egg this morning, and I have eaten it for my breakfast."
Then Gud said: "If you will show me the hen, perhaps I can persuade her to lay another egg."
So the woman called to the hen in the language of beasts and birds, and the hen came out from under the bed where she had been looking for insects. Gud saw that the hen had false teeth and was getting old, for her comb was pale as roses in the night. So he flattered the vanity of the hen by commenting on the beauty of her scarlet comb. Whereupon she laid another egg, whilst without the cottage the astronomical storm raged on.