"A long while ago—like you, I've been on a vacation. The fact was that experience gave me a distaste for my profession. But you know how it is. We are all creatures of habit, as you say, and there are ups and downs in all business. I feel now that it is about time I got back to work—especially since I discovered this virgin world. With that we can start all over, everything new, all our experience to help us, and the likelihood of good luck this time by the law of averages."
"Right you are," agreed Gud, "there is nothing like work. A shoemaker should stick to his last and die with his hammer in his hand. Yes, I think I will consider your proposition. Where is this property you speak of?"
"In the eighth plane."
"The eighth plane!" repeated Gud incredulously. "My dear fellow, there are only seven planes!"
"That's just it; it's being in a place where it could not be explains why it is still there."
"A fascinating tale," said Gud dubiously, "but how can mortals stay rational and civilized if they do not know that we exist, or that there are immortal joys and torments awaiting for them after they are through with their brief span of mortality?"
"Now I can't answer that question as to theory, but I can report my observation of the fact that they manage it very decently well."
"It seems incredible to me," sighed Gud.
"It doesn't to me," replied the Devil, "for if I were mortal I would surely make the best of the life I had instead of pining and worrying about another, which, as you know for yourself, is never quite up to mortal expectations."
The Devil knocked the ash out of the bowl of his pipe on one of the glowing rocks. "Naturally we haven't as much interest as you have in keeping the superstition alive, since we have the dirty end of the deal. But you know very well that you can't do business without us. It has been repeatedly demonstrated that mortals quickly lose interest in those one-sided theologies which, like their own Utopias, are insipid with perfect goodness and boresome with joy. What pleasure could there be in hoping to go to an eternal sunparlor without knowing that one's neighbor was going to hell?"