Thus the Rose, amid much laughter and thanks for her story; but one of us asked, 'And what became of Balthasar the Bottomless, did he remain in his new situation long?' Frau Rosa turned round laughing and pointed to a corner of the room, and said, 'There he sits still as the bold drinker sat 200 years ago!' There he sat sobbing between every draught of Rhenish that he drank, poor shrunken pallid fellow: it was the very same man who had come up so sleepily when the big bell was rung for him a while before. All were anxious to hear the conditions which had been wrung from him by Senator Walther respecting his soul. 'Oh sir,' he replied, in a voice which sounded as if Eternal Death was accompanying him on the bassoon, 'don't require me to tell you.' 'Out with it! what did he want? Out with it!' cried all. 'My soul.' 'What for?' 'For wine.' 'Speak plainly, old fellow, what did he do with your soul?' He was silent for a long time, and at last said, 'Why should I tell this, gentlemen? It is a dreadful thing, and you don't know what it is to lose a soul as none of you ever had one.' 'All the more reason why you shouldn't be afraid of hurting our feelings,' said another. 'But there is a mortal here, I may not say it before him.' 'Go on,' said I, trembling all over, 'I'm not easily shocked; after all, I suppose it was only the Devil who came for you, and he does that every night on the stage.' 'Well then,' said the old man, 'it was the man with the tap who had begun by selling _his_ soul to the Devil, but on condition that he should redeem it if he could find a substitute. He had tried many but all had escaped him; so he made sure of me. I had grown up a wild youth with no teaching, and the wars had left me no time for thinking of my own soul, or Heaven, or Hell, and my only idea was to have a good time during my life. And my idea of a good time was plenty to drink and all day to drink it in. Walther perceived this, and says he, "To live and swill in this Vinous Paradise for two or three decades that would be a life, hey Balthasar? Wouldn't it?" "Ah!" said I, "I should think it would, but how could I attain such felicity?" "Which would you think most of, living here and drinking to your heart's content as long as you _do_ live, or of the stories about what will happen afterwards?" I swore a dreadful oath, "My bones will go where so many of my comrades' bones are lying. When a man is dead he neither feels nor thinks. I have seen that plainly enough in the case of many a poor fellow whose skull has been smashed by a bullet; and therefore I will choose to live and be merry." "Very well," said he. "Then you renounce and forswear the hereafter, do you? then I can easily manage to make you cellarmaster here; only write your name in this book, and swear a binding oath at the same time." I swore again that the Devil or whoever else liked might have all that remained of me after death. When I had said this I