"Sit still," said he, "and I'll tell you the condemdest story you ever heard. That corporation means that we are now entering a governmental and sociological area of low pressure that will make the French Revolution look like a cipher with the rim rubbed out. In the end you'll be apt to have clearer views as to whether or not 'i-m-p' spells improvement'!"
This he seemed to consider a very clever play upon words, and he sat for some time, laughing in the manner adopted by the stage villain in his moments of solitude. His Mephistophelean behavior, or something, made me giddy. His manner was quite calm, however, and after a while we lapsed back into the commonplace.
"Ever read a story," said he, "named The Bottle Imp?"
"Stevenson's Bottle Imp?" I exclaimed, glad to find a topic of common interest, and feeling that it could not be a dangerous thing to be shut into the same smoking compartment with any man who loved such things, no matter how Captain-Kiddish he might appear. "Why, yes, I have often read it. I am a teacher of literature and an admirer of Stevenson. He possesses—"
"Who? Adlai?" he said. "Did he ever have it?"
"I mean Robert Louis," said I. "He wrote it, you know."
"Oh!" said my companion meditatively, "he did, did he? Wrote it, eh? It's as likely as not he did—I know Adlai. Met him once, when I was putting a bill through down at Springfield: nice man! Well about this Bottle Imp. You know the story tells how he was shut up in a bottle—the Imp was—and whoever owned it could have anything he ordered, just like the fellow with the lamp—"
"Except long life!" said I, venturing to interrupt.
"Of course, not that!" replied my strange traveling companion. "If the thing had been used to prolong life, where would the Imp come in? His side of the deal was to get a soul to torture. He couldn't be asked to give 'em length of days, you understand. It couldn't be expected."
I had to admit that, from the Imp's standpoint, there was much force in this remark.