“I WILL MAKE MYSELF AS TALL AS THE TOWER”
“Ha ha! You did not bargain for that, did you, my friend?” said Smith. “Now you will receive a few gentle blows with the hammer.” Hearing this, all the devils flew away in disorder.
He summoned all his workmen, and each in turn pounded Lucifer with their hammer, so gently, so very gently, until the prisoner promised never to torment Smith again. On the other hand, he promised that he should always receive his supplies of coal, iron, and wood from Hell.
With a red-hot nail Smith burnt a little hole in the purse. “Sssst” it hissed, and the Devil made his escape and disappeared.
Again days became weeks, months, and years, and one day it was not a messenger from Hell who came to the forge, but Death, who is no respecter of persons, and Smith left the earth.
He was now in a strange land, the land up above. He found himself before a forked road. On the left he saw a wide, well-kept road with an avenue of trees and flowering shrubs. To the right a rough and narrow path overgrown with brambles and thorns. The wide road descended, and the narrow path seemed to ascend a mountain side in the direction of Heaven. Smith chose the wide road, and presently arrived before a high and gloomy gateway, on which was written in letters of fire, “Hell.”
IT WAS NOT A MESSENGER FROM HELL
“I am curious to see what it is like in there,” thought Smith, and he deliberately pulled the bell.
“Who is there?” said a voice from behind the door.