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The Warden and the Weasel

Part II

When we last left the Warden and the Weasel, they had begun walking down O'Hare Lane. As usual, the reader is invited to join the Dauntless Duo in their fine imagery of prancing steeds and clanking armor.

They noticed immediately that the path was well used. Many thousands of eager feet had tramped this way before, and the virtual grass was not much in evidence. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of small and large crosses of every description littered the path, and now and then they could observe pentagrams and other hex symbols carved into the virtual bark of the virtual trees that lined the way. Perhaps to amuse himself, the Warden extracted a small hatchet from his pouch and would hack at a virtual tree now and then as he passed.

As the came to the end of the Lane, they found themselves standing at the edge of a large clearing. Atheists and theists both were standing about, handing Posts back and forth. Directly in front of them, Bill P. was busily carving his initials into a virtual tree. He looked up at their approach, and noticed the damage that Warden had inflicted with his hatchet.

"You're making quite a mess of the path, friend." he offered by way of greeting.

"Liar! Liar!" hissed Weasel. "It's not the path, it's the trees!"

"Oh.", said Bill, not sure quite what to make of Weasel.

"I come seeking Tony, the Bigot. I will have Words with him, and we shall conduct an Experiment", said Warden, quite firmly.

"Tony, the Bigot?", questioned Bill. "I think you may have misunderstood a few things. Tony blows off some steam now and then, but he's no bigot".

"I seek Tony, not you" intoned Warden, quite pompously. "However, I have some Words to spare for you as well". And with that he reached into his pouch and withdrew a half dozen finely polished Morons and strew them at Bill's feet.

The squirrel, who had followed the pair all down the lane under the impression that Warden had nuts in his pouch, scurried over to examine the Morons closely. His disappointment was evident to all but Weasel, who had withdrawn a small fencing sword from his belt, and was dancing about lunging at Bill's shadow shouting "Touche'" gleefully.

At this moment Peter W. walked over. "Hello, Warden. I thought you were better than this. I see now that you are just another scared little theist. *plonk*!". And with that, Warden disappeared, at least to Peter's eyes, though not to anyone else's. The *plonk* is a power that most people in Usenet Forest have, and everyone was quite shocked that Peter had used it so abruptly.

By this time Tony had walked over, and Cerebral Simon was not far behind. Tony was actively trying to get Simon to answer a particular question, but Simon was variously insisting that Tony had never asked properly, would not understand the answer anyway, and would only ridicule said answer if it were forthcoming. It took a great number of very Impressive Words for Simon to say this, but that's Simon's way. He is Cerebral Simon, after all.

"Whatcha got for me, Warden?", asked Tony innocently.

"Many fine insults, Bigot", stated Warden, and he reached into his bag and scattered dozens of Moron's and Stupid's in Tony's general direction. Some of them landed at the feet of other atheists, and some of them were quite annoyed, but Warden stood solidly.

"Um, those aren't exactly insults, friend", Tony opined.

"Merely pejoratives", Cerebral Simon offered, "But well deserved, IMHO."

Actually it took several minutes and many Fine Words for Simon to express this, but I have summarized for the sake of conserving bandwidth.

"Got anything else?", asked Tony.

The Warden rummaged in his pouch, and came up with a very pretty bronzed imbecile. Tony admired it, and commented on the spiffy polish. "It's well kerned, too. But it's not capitalized", he said.

"I intend to use it in a Sentence", said Warden stiffly.

At this very moment, a large Easter Bunny hopped up to the Warden. "I am equivalent to God", she said, winking at the atheists.

"Poo!", said Warden. "You cannot satisfy argument from Design. Begone!"

"Very well", said the Easter Bunny, and she turned into the Holy IPU, which made her quite invisible, yet she retained the mystical essence of pinkness. "Can you see me better now?", she asked sweetly.

The atheists all thought that was pretty funny, but neither Warden nor Weasel appeared to have understood.

"How do you know I do not see Blue where you see Pink", thundered Warden, apparently under the impression that this was a Profound Statement.

A few scattered *plonks* were heard, but some of the atheists took it as a serious question, and attempted to explain, but the Warden would have none of it.