They limped and stuttered and staggered and mouthed and staggered round me, till I could endure no more.
"So I am the master of this idiotic puppet-show, am I?" I said bitterly, watching Mulvaney trying to come to attention by spasms.
"In saecula saeculorum," said the Devil, bowing his head; "and you needn't kick, my dear fellow, because they will concern no one but yourself by the time you whistle up to the door. Stop reviling me and uncover. Here's the Master!"
Uncover! I would have dropped on my knees, had not the Devil prevented me, at sightof the portly form of Maitre François Rabelais, some time Curé of Meudon. He wore a smoke-stained apron of the colours of Gargantua. I made a sign which was duly returned. "An Entered Apprentice in difficulties with his rough ashlar, Worshipful Sir," explained the Devil. I was too angry to speak.
Said the Master, rubbing his chin: "Are those things yours?" "Even so, Worshipful Sir," I muttered, praying inwardly that the Characters would at least keep quiet while the Master was near. He touched one or two thoughtfully, put his hand upon my shoulder and started: "By the Great Bells of Notre Dame, you are in the flesh—the warm flesh!—the flesh I quitted so long—ah, so long! And you fret and behave unseemly because of these shadows! Listen now! I, even I, would give my Three, Panurge, Gargantua and Pantagruel, for one little hour of the life that is in you. AndIam the Master!"
But the words gave me no comfort. I could hear Mrs. Mallowe's joints cracking—or it might have been merely her stays.
"Worshipful Sir, he will not believe that," said the Devil. "Who live by shadows lust for shadows. Tell him something more to his need."
The Master grunted contemptuously: "And he is flesh and blood! Know this, then. The First Law is to make them stand upon their feet, and the Second is to make them stand upon their feet, and the Third is to make them stand upon their feet. But, for all that, Trajan is a fisher of frogs." He passed on, and I could hear him say to himself: "One hour—one minute—of life in the flesh, and I would sell the Great Perhaps thrice over!"
"Well," said the Devil, "you've made the Master angry, seen about all there is to be seen, except the Furnace of First Edition, and, as the Master is in charge of that, I should avoid it. Now you'd better go. You know what you ought to do?"
"I don't need all Hell——"
"Pardon me. Better men than you have called this Paradise."
"AllHell, I said, and the Master to tell mewhat I knew before. What I want to know ishow?" "Go and find out," said the Devil. We turned to the door, and I was aware that my Characters had grouped themselves at the exit. "They are going to give you an ovation. Think o' that, now!" said the Devil. I shuddered and dropped my eyes, while one-and-fifty voices broke into a wailing song, whereof the words, so far as I recollect, ran:
But we brought forth and reared in hoursOf change, alarm, surprise.What shelter to grow ripe is ours—What leisure to grow wise?
I ran the gauntlet, narrowly missed collision with an impetuous soul (I hoped he liked his Characters when he met them), and flung free into the night, where I should have knocked my head against the stars. But the Devil caught me.
The brain-fever bird was fluting across the grey, dewy lawn, and the punkah had stoppedagain. "Go to Jehannum and get another man to pull," I said drowsily. "Exactly," said a voice from the inkpot.
Now the proof that this story is absolutely true lies in the fact that there will be no other to follow it.
FOOTNOTES:[31]From "Week's News," Sept. 15, 1888.
FOOTNOTES:
[31]From "Week's News," Sept. 15, 1888.
[31]From "Week's News," Sept. 15, 1888.