“Well,” said God, getting a little angry, perhaps, “if you don't want to go to Heaven, Murtrie, you don't have to. But you've been, praying to go to Heaven, and all that sort of thing, for seventy or eighty years, and I naturally thought you were in earnest. But I'm through with you... you can go to Hell.”
“Oh! Oh! Oh!” moaned Old Man Murtrie.
“No,” said the Devil, “I've changed my mind, too. My distaste for Murtrie has returned to me. I don't want him around. I won't have him in Hell.”
“See here, now!” cried Death. “You two are starting it all over again. I won't have it, so I won't! You aren't fair to Murtrie, and you aren't fair to me! This matter has got to be settled, and settled to-night!”
“Well, then,” said God, “settle it. I've ceased to care one way or another.”
“I will not,” said Death, “I know my job, and I stick to my job. One of you two has got to settle it.”
“Toss a coin,” suggested the Devil, indifferently.
Death looked around for one.
“There's a qu-qu-quarter in m-m-my t-t-trousers' p-p-pocket,” stammered Old Man Murtrie, and then stuck his head under the bedclothes and shivered as if he had the ague.
Death picked up Murtrie's poor little weazened trousers from the floor at the foot of the cot, where they lay sprawled untidily, and shook them till the quarter dropped out.