“I don't want him. He can't get into Heaven.”
And the Devil would look at his large, weak, characterless nose;—a nose so big that it might have suggested force on any one but Old Man Murtrie—and think what a sham it was, and how effectually all its contemptible effort to be a real nose was exposed in Old Man Murtrie's sleep. And the Devil would say:
“I don't want him. He can't get into Hell.”
And then Death would say, querulously: “But he can't go on living forever. My reputation is suffering.”
“You should take him,” the Devil would say to God. “He goes to church on Sunday, and he is the most meek and pious and humble and prayerful person in all Brooklyn, and perhaps in all the world.”
“But he takes drugs,” God would say. “You should take him, because he is a drug fiend.”
“He takes drugs,” the Devil would admit, “but that doesn't make him a fiend. You have to do something besides take drugs to be a fiend. You will permit me to have my own notions, I am sure, on what constitutes a fiend.”
“You ought to forgive him the drugs for the sake of his piety,” the Devil would say. “And taking drugs is his only vice. He doesn't drink, or smoke tobacco, or use profane language, or gamble. And he doesn't run after women.”
“You ought to forgive him the piety for the sake of the drugs,” God would tell the Devil.
“I never saw such a pair as you two,” Death would say querulously. “Quibble, quibble, quibble!—while Old Man Murtrie goes on and on living! He's lived so long that he is affecting death rates and insurance tables, all by himself, and you know what that does to my reputation.”