DEVIL STORIES
mind you of our little contract, concluded this day forty years."
"You remember," said Silvester, "that you are not to ask anything exceeding my power to perform."
"I have no such intention," said Lucifer. "On the contrary, I am about to solicit a favour which can be bestowed by you alone. You are Pope, I desire that you would make me a Cardinal."
"In the expectation, I presume," returned Gerbert, "of becoming Pope on the next vacancy."
"An expectation," replied Lucifer, "which I may most reasonably entertain, considering my enormous wealth, my proficiency in intrigue, and the present condition of the Sacred College."
"You would doubtless," said Gerbert, "endeavour to subvert the foundations of the Faith, and, by a course of profligacy and licentiousness, render the Holy See odious and contemptible."
"On the contrary," said the fiend, "I would extirpate heresy, and all learning and knowledge as inevitably tending thereunto. I would suffer no man to read but the priest, and confine his reading to his breviary. I would burn your books together with your bones on the first convenient opportunity. I would observe an austere propriety of conduct, and be especially careful not to loosen one rivet in the tremendous yoke I was forging for the minds and consciences of mankind."
"If it be so," said Gerbert, "let's be off!"
"What!" exclaimed Lucifer, "you are willing to accompany me to the infernal regions!"
"Assuredly, rather than be accessory to the burning
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