with the exception of falsehood, evil design, treachery, or cunning, and knavery, and chicanery on his part; and if hereinafter described your Majesty shall be induced or persuaded from any cause hereinbefore noted and set down to dismiss him from your service for ever with your own free will, all consequences and remonstrances to the contrary notwithstanding, then I am free to serve whom I please.'
'Say it again!' said the Demon, coming closer to me, and, on my repeating the above speech with emendations, he cried out with rapture: 'Good!— very good! A clever fellow! I agree—I consent! A capital secretary!'
I now sat down to the table, and drew up a tripartite agreement to the desired effect, sticking as much learned and legal phraseology into it as I was master of, in order to drown the sense of such an important document to me; for I regarded myself as the only one of the three whom it seriously affected. The Demon had had his full measure meted out to him long ago. The Doctor's ultimate fate was still undecided, and could not be influenced, I thought, by the document in question. I alone was yet to be born for heaven or for hell. The risk was tremendous; the thought was distracting. Should my friend prove treacherous, or openly resist, it only remained for me to return into the bosom of my family for a few short months, and then bid them farewell for ever. Nevertheless, my courage rose, and the remembrance of all he had done for me came upon me with mighty force. The protocol was finished, and duly signed by the contracting parties, witnesses being thought unnecessary.
As soon as I had signed the paper, another overwhelming thought of dismay and distraction darted into my mind. The Doctor, I now remembered, had promised the Demon verbally that he would write a fashionable book against Christianity, by whose means a million of valuable souls
