Page:Devil stories - an anthology.djvu/240

 He thus arrived at the term agreed on in the contract, and as he had not had a paradise here below, he sought through his hardly-acquired wisdom a clever way of conquering one above.

XIII

Death found him at Coq at work in his shop. Experience had at least taught him that work is the most lasting of pleasures.

"Are you ready?" said Death.

"I am."

He took his club, put a score of balls in his pocket, threw his sack over his shoulder, and buckled his gaiters without taking off his apron.

"What do you want your club for?"

"Why, to golf in paradise with my patron St. Antony."

"Do you fancy, then, that I am going to conduct you to paradise?"

"You must, as I have half-a-dozen souls to carry there, that I once saved from the clutches of Belzébuth."

"Better have saved your own. En route, cher Dumollet!

The great golfer saw that the old reaper bore him a grudge, and that he was going to conduct him to the paradise of the lost.

Indeed a quarter of an hour later the two travellers knocked at the gate of hell.

"Toc, toc!" [218]