When these had departed, a gigantic fiend calls loudly for clearing the bar, and throws down thereat a man who was a load in himself. “What hast thou there?” demanded Lucifer. “An innkeeper,” answered he. “What?” cried the King, “only one innkeeper, when they used to come by the thousands. Hast thou, sirrah, not been out for ten years, and dost bring hither but one, and such an one as would serve us in the world better than thee, foul lazy hound!” “You are too just to condemn me before hearing me,” pleaded he, “he was the only one laid to my charge, and now I am rid of him. But I despatched you from his house many an idler who drank his family’s maintenance, and now and then a dicer, and card player, a fine swearer, an innocent glutton, a negligent tapster and a maid, harsh in the kitchen, but never a kinder abed or in the cellar.” “Although this fellow deserves to be with the flatterers beneath,” said the Evil One, “natheless take him to his comrades in the cell of the liquid-poisoners, among the apothecaries and drugsters who have concocted drinks to murder their customers; boil him well for that he did not brew better beer.” “By your leave,” began the innkeeper tremblingly, “I deserve no such treatment, the trade must be carried on.” “Couldst thou not have lived,” quoth the Evil One, “without allowing rioting and gambling, wantonness and drunkenness, oaths and quarrels, slanders and lies? and wouldst thou, old hell-hound, now live better than we? Prithee, tell what evil have we here which thou hadst not at thine home, save the punishment alone? Indeed, to speak the plain truth here, the infernal heat and cold are nothing new to thee. Hast thou not seen sparks of our fire upon the tongues of the cursers and the scolds, whilst dragging their husbands home? Was there not a deal of the undying flame on the drunkard’s lips or in the eyes of the angry? And couldst thou not perceive a trace of hellish cold in the rake’s generosity, and especially in thine own kindness towards him as long as he had anything in his possession; in the mocker’s jest; in the praise of the envious and of the defamer, in the promises of the lecherous, or in the limbs of thy boon companions, benumbed beneath thy tables? Is hell strange to thee whose very home is a hell? Aroint thee, flamhound, to thy penance!”