As soon as a circle of safe diameter had been described by their fingers, they looked up. There Jeremiah was fated to behold eyes of a much deeper red than his own, peering down; moreover with a less mournful expression. He fell, but had the good sense to fall within the magic circle, and there he groaned. Gideon was thus left alone to brave the infernal terrors; and whatsoever some may say respecting Beelzebub, certainly on this occasion, he did not appear the handsome and well-favoured gentleman, equipped in boots, shining so beautifully, that everything is reflected, except his hoofs,--and perfumed with spices and ointments, to suppress the strong effluvial sulphur of his person. Nor was he the noble fiend of Milton, shorn of his glory, as the sun in a partial eclipse: for we presume that his devilship has the right of proving the simile false at the hour of midnight. Accordingly, horrible sights were Gideon’s, and they were ever varying. Now the enemy assumed some strange mixture of forms,--rolling heads, contorted legs, and swinging tail: but before a conception could be formed in the tailor’s mind of what they were, he was altogether changed. Light, darkness, and smoke, were around him. The cypress leaves rustled to the movement of his hoofs. Saucer eyes, in the edges of which there lurked such a malicious wink and twinkle; a mouth, occasionally, when it could be seen, as wide and black as the pit whence he came, in which hung a tongue, bright and lurid with a serpent’s poison, breathing out thence visibly a blue air; naked limbs, around which a green light flickered, shewing neither skin, muscle, nor bone, but an indescribable substance: large black hoofs, hanging from small ancles; all these parts changed, and poor Gideon stared, perfectly bewildered at the proportions of his opponent. He soon, however, regained his wonted composure, and broke the silence,-- “Nay, enemy of man, think not thus to confound me, with your childish tricks. Be a man, Nicholas, and not a fool.” In a moment around the circle which had been made, a blue flame flashed. The devil danced on the outside, with the cypress for his stilts. His face was concealed, and he now wore the garb of a scrivener, with paper and pens stuck in his belt. He leapt to the ground, and there he stood, of small stature, but twisting and pliable. “Gideon Chiselwig,” said the learned clerk, “you are a brave earth-clod. I am an antiquarian in my small way, and should be glad of your autograph on this parchment. In my desk at home, I have the names of great warriors, statesmen, and poets, but am yet denied the honour of that of a tailor. Mine is a rare and a valuable museum. Friend, be so kind as to write me ‘Gideon Chiselwig’ here, in this corner. Now,”--and he unfolded a long roll, and held it out to Gideon. “Nay, nay, your hands are stiff and cold, with the blowing of this storm; give me a shake, and I’ll warm them. Tush! Gideon a coward? Then write me your initials.”