Beelzebub’s Flight to the Planet Earth for the Fifth Time

“And as at that period to which my tale relates, this Persian king needed for some or other of his undoubtedly Hasnamussian aims, a great deal of this metal, rare on the surface of the Earth, called ‘gold,’ and as the notion concerning this method that had been invented by the then existing ‘Hasnamussian-individual,’ Harnahoom, had also reached his presence, he was eager to get gold by so easy a means.

“When this Persian king had finally decided to get gold by ‘alchemy,’ he then and there for the first time cognized with the whole of his being that he did not as yet know that ‘little secret’ without which it was absolutely impossible to fulfill this desire of his. So he then pondered how to find out that ‘little secret.’

“The result of this pondering was that he became aware of the following:

“As the learned already have knowledge of every other kind of ‘mystery,’ then this mystery must also be known to one of them.

“Having finally arrived at such a conclusion, he, with an intensified functioning of ‘being-astonishment’ at why such a simple idea had never entered his head before, called several of his attendant subjects and ordered them to find out which of the learned beings of his capital knew this mystery.

“When it was reported to him the following day that not a single one of the learned beings of the capital knew this mystery, he ordered inquiries to be made also of all the learned present among the beings of the whole of his subject-community, and when after several days he again received the same negative reply, he once more began to ponder, and this time very seriously.

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