No. 1.—How the World Was Made.

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Before the dawn of time, the Mayor sat in his office and said to himself, “I should like to have a city to be Mayor of, and I should like to have a world to contain the city and supply its department stores with imported goods.”

So the Mayor summoned all the powers invested in him by virtue of his office, and he created a Contract. And in the Contract were specified all the materials and measurements of the city, and of the world in which it was to be built.

And when he had created the Contract, the Mayor said, “It is not good for the Mayor to be alone.” So the Mayor created Woman to be his wife, and he created Man to be the woman’s brother, and he awarded the Contract to the brother-in-law whom he had created.

But the brother-in-law said in his heart, “I will grow fat on the profits of this Contract.” And he procured materials greatly inferior to those that were specified in the Contract, and he submitted false expense reports to the Mayor, and the project ran sore over budget.

And that is how the world came to be made of inferior materials sloppily put together. And the Mayor looked at the world, and behold, it was very bad. So the Mayor ordered an investigation into the construction of the world, and that investigation is still going on today. And whenever you feel the wind blowing through the tall buildings downtown, you know that the investigation is taking testimony from expert witnesses.