Drearily enough, the Devil began his rounds again. He had to keep the boys cheered up. How he wished that he had not been so democratic and told them just when things had been started on the sphere. The best he could do now, was to lie out of that and claim that this was just a trial run. But he could see that many of his once loyal helpers had utterly lost faith in his leadership. He had been proud of those helpers, some of the brightest demons in the game. He had bid them off good jobs in older hells by promises of greater freedom to try out their own ideas. In that way he had obtained a superior set of tortures for special sins. But now no souls—and half his demons deserted and the cleverest of his torture machines rusting from lack of use.
At last he could stand it no longer, and he went back to his private chambers. Telling his valet that he was not to be disturbed, he locked the door and took a sleeping potion gauged for a century.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
I. B. Devil awoke and tried to stretch himself, but he was so stiff he could hardly move. Cold, icy cold penetrated his very bones. He managed at last to sit up on the edge of his couch, and then the chamber door fell in before the battering ram of the last of his faithful followers. Six shivering demons piled into the chamber—the six grateful firemen to whom he had given the extra souls.
"The last of the fires are out, Your Majesty, and all the others have deserted."
"But why," demanded the Devil, "did you not keep my private furnace fired? We shall all freeze to death."
"But, Your Majesty, there is no one to work the mines. Do you not remember that you arranged for them to be worked by the souls of scabs who were to be killed by strikers?"
"Another blunder," sighed the Devil. "Well, there is a grate and in that case yonder is my private stock of smoking brimstone. Light it, for I must get thawed out so I can think."
The two-souled firemen hastened to obey and the seven of them were soon sitting around the spluttering blue flames and inhaling the delicious vapors.