XIII
Death found him at Coq at work in his shop. Experience had at least taught him that work is the most lasting of pleasures.
“Are you ready?” said Death.
“I am.”
He took his club, put a score of balls in his pocket, threw his sack over his shoulder, and buckled his gaiters without taking off his apron.
“What do you want your club for?”
“Why, to golf in paradise with my patron St. Antony.”
“Do you fancy, then, that I am going to conduct you to paradise?”
“You must, as I have half-a-dozen souls to carry there, that I once saved from the clutches of Belzébuth.”
“Better have saved your own. En route, cher Dumollet!”
The great golfer saw that the old reaper bore him a grudge, and that he was going to conduct him to the paradise of the lost.[25]
Indeed a quarter of an hour later the two travellers knocked at the gate of hell.
“Toc, toc!”
“Who is there?”
“The wheelwright of Coq,” said the great golfer.
“Don’t open the door,” cried Belzébuth; “that rascal wins at every turn; he is capable of depopulating my empire.”
Roger laughed in his sleeve.
“Oh! you are not saved,” said Death. “I am going to take you where you won’t be cold either.”
Quicker than a beggar would have emptied a poor’s box they were in purgatory.
“Toc—toc!”
“Who is there?”
“The wheelwright of Coq,” said the great golfer.
“But he is in a state of mortal sin,” cried the angel on duty. “Take him away from here—he can’t come in.”
“I cannot, all the same, let him linger between heaven and earth,” said Death; “I shall shunt him back to Coq.”
“Where they will take me for a ghost. Thank you! is there not still paradise?”