"Poor old Hohenzollern has got it in the neck at last," said Machiavelli, who was hosing off the premises with vitriol in preparation for a new squad of shirtwaist-factory owners.
Satan listened attentively. Indeed, it was true. The Hohenzollerns had been booted off the throne of Germany.
"Well, that's tough," said Satan. "I never could see why they chivied those poor Hohenzollerns so. They were perfect devils. I have often said so. Poor old Bill! Why, he was one of the best pupils I ever had. I heard someone say that he had made Belgium a hell upon earth. Wasn't that a compliment?"
"Not only that," said Machiavelli; "he had the novel idea of making the sea a hell, too. He and Tirpitz did magnificent work. Not even a party of schoolgirls could go on the water without getting torpedoed. They drowned I don't know how many innocent women and children in a manner worthy of the highest education."
"That deportation of non-combatants from Lille was excellent, too," mused Satan.
"Don't forget the shooting of Miss Cavell," said Machiavelli. "And there was the bombing of unfortified towns, and the poison gas. Why, in my palmiest days I never thought of anything so choice as that poison gas. I told Borgia about it, and she went green with envy."
"You're right, Mac," said Satan, treading in his excitement on a captain of Uhlans who was hanging out to cool; "that Kaiser is a regular prince of darkness. When he gets down here (and I guess he will pretty soon) we'll omit the setting-up exercises and put him right into advanced tactics. Come to think of it, there were those prison camps, too, where he allowed captured soldiers to rot with filth and disease without any physicians. Excellent!"
"There's only one drawback," said Machiavelli regretfully. "The man has raised so much hell on earth that I doubt if there's much we can teach him down here. Really, he's not an amateur at all, but a professional. I don't know whether it wouldn't be more punishment to send him to heaven instead. As a matter of fact, down here he'll feel perfectly at home."
"I guess we can still think up one or two little novelties for him," said Satan, as he opened a trap-door and let a dozen of Billy Sunday's converts drop into the blazing sulphur.