The neighbor asked the smart man if he had ever sent anyone to see what had happened to his great ships. Neither the smart man nor the crafty man could answer his question. They were too busy being sad and angry. After all, they had used the best materials known to man to send the great truth, and had failed. “I’ll go investigate” said the neighbor. ” I want to know why the truth cannot be spread. That’s not natural”.

The neighbor could only afford a simple wooden boat. The crafty man said ” You’ll never make it in that flimsy wooden boat. I’ll fortify it with metal for you”. The neighbor thanked the crafty man and assured the smart man that he would get to the bottom (no pun intended) of this.

The neighbor got into the boat and set sail for the opposite coast. Soon, he began to hear an odd sound, like someone drinking the last few drops of a milkshake through a straw. He smelled a foul smell. He looked all around to see if he could find out what was happening. To his horror he found that the metal reinforcements the crafty man had made were melting way from the wooden shell of his boat.

The neighbor was terribly frightened. Surely the the simple wooden boat would not last the hour, and he would be drowned without ever discovering why these mysterious things had happened. A half hour passed, then an hour, then two, then six. The wooden boat was damaged but after several days journey, the neighbor succeeded in reaching the other side.

The neighbor said a thankful prayer as he stepped from his boat at the kingdom’s great port city. He had been thinking about all of the strange circumstances surrounding the smart man’s quest and his own harrowing journey. Being quite thirsty from his difficult voyage he visited a local pub and striking up a conversation with a local longshoreman discovered that the royal scientists knew all about the melting metal.

to be continued…