"Happy thought—go to Jehannum!" said a voice at my elbow. I turned and saw, seated on the edge of my bed, a large and luminous Devil. "I'm not afraid," I said. "You're an illusion bred by too much tobacco and not enough sleep. If I look at you steadily for a minute you will disappear. You are an ignis fatuus."
"Fatuous yourself!" answered the Devil blandly. "Do you mean to say you don't know me?" He shrivelled up to the size of a blob of sediment on the end of a pen, and I recognised my old friend the Devil of Discontent, who lived in the bottom of the inkpot, but emerges half a day after each story has been printed with a host of useless suggestions for its betterment.
"Oh, it's you, is it?" I said. "You're not due till next week. Get back to your inkpot."
"Hush!" said the Devil. "I have an idea."
"Too late, as usual. I know your ways."
"No. It's a perfectly practicable one. Your swearing at the coolie suggested it. Did you ever hear of a man called Dante—charmin' fellow, friend o' mine?"
"'Dante once prepared to paint a picture,'" I quoted.
"Yes. I inspired that notion—but never mind. Are you willing to play Dante to my Virgil? I can't guarantee a nine-circle Inferno, any more than you can turn out a cantoed epic, but there's absolutely no risk and—it will run to three columns at least."
"But what sort of Hell do you own?" I said. "I fancied your operations were mostly above ground. You have no jurisdiction over the dead."
"Sainted Leopardi!" rapped the Devil, resuming natural size. "Is that all you know? I'm proprietor of one of the largest Hells in existence—the Limbo of Lost Endeavor, where the souls of all the Characters go."