This clerical personage who reminds us of the devil in _Peer Gynt_, who also appears as a parson, claims the better's head and neatly carries it off. This is a modern version of an incident similar to Chaucer's _Friar's Tale_, where the devil claimed whatever was offered him in sincerity. The combination of humor and mystery in Washington Irving's _The Devil and Tom Walker_ shows the black woodsman in an amusing though terrifying aspect, as he claims the keeping of the contracts made with him by Tom and his miserly wife. When Tom goes to search for his spouse in the woods, he fails to find her. She had probably attempted to deal with the black man as she had been accustomed to deal with her husband; but though the female scold is generally considered a match for the devil, yet in this instance she appears to have had the worst of it. She must have died game, however, for it is said Tom noticed many prints of cloven feet deeply stamped about the tree, and found handsful of hair that looked as if they had been plucked from the coarse shock of the black woodsman. Tom knew his wife's prowess by experience. He shrugged his shoulders as he looked at the fierce signs of clapper-clawing. "Egad!" he said to himself, "Old Scratch must have had a tough time of it!" The devil amuses himself in various ways, as is seen by the antics of the mysterious stranger in Poe's _The Devil in the Belfry_, who comes curvetting into the old Dutch village with his audacious and sinister face and curious costume, to upset the sacred time of the place. The visitant in _Bon Bon_ is likewise queer as to dress and habits. He wears garments in the style of a century before, having a queue but no shirt, a cravat with an ecclesiastic suggestion, also a stylus and black book. His facial expression is such as would have struck Uriah Heap dumb with envy, and the hint of hoofs and a forked tail is cleverly given though not obtruded. The most remarkable feature of his appearance, however, is that he has no eyes, simply a dead level of flesh. He declares that he eats souls and prefers to buy them alive to insure freshness. He has a taste for philosophers, when they are not too tough.