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.
The Devil got out a set of heavy, asbestos furs, smiling as he recalled
for whom he had ordered them. He had intended to keep her in his private
chamber to light his pipe and brew his tea--and he had chuckled many a
time at the thought of her in summer furs.
He laid the furs on a chair and went to his desk and wrote busily for a
few minutes.
"Now, boys," he said, "here are your passes for mortality, and remember
you have two souls."
The firemen vanished and the Devil was alone in Hell.
He drew on the furs and wrapped his own travelling cape about them. Then
he went into the outer chamber. Across the room the windows, into which
usually shone the cheery redness of roaring flames, were now frosted
with weird designs, and the fireproof platinum fittings on the great
door were hoary white.
Slowly the Devil trudged across the chill chamber and, with a fur-clad
hand, grasped the frosted handle, swung open the great door, and stepped
out on the balcony.
For a moment he was blinded by the dazzling, sparkling white. He
stumbled over some object and bent down to find the huddled form of a
demon frozen stiff as an ice idol. It was poor little Beezel, who had
come all the way from the hell of the three-ringed planet to try out his
new scheme of torture for trigamists.
I. B. Devil stepped lightly over his frozen disciple and went to the
balcony rail. Shading his eyes until they became accustomed to the white
glare, he now looked far up and down the wide stretches of his domain,
puzzled, dumbfounded and subdued. The water mains that supplied the
steam baths had burst and flooded the place, and all hell was frozen
over!
* * * * *
I. B. Devil leaped from the balustrade and straight as an arrow shot
upward to Gud's Paradise.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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