In the evening the Devil brought him a tall, full-bosomed lady in a
red dress, explaining that she was his new wife. He spent the whole evening kissing her and eating gingcrbreads, and at night he lay on a soft feather bed, tossing from side to side. But he just couldn't get to sleep, and he felt as if all was not well.
'We have lots of money,' he told his wife. 'But it might attract burglars. You'd better take a candle and have a look.'
He couldn't sleep all night, and kept getting up to see if his trunk was all right. In the morning he had to go to matins. Now, rich and poor rcceive equal honours in church. When Theodore had been poor he had prayed 'Lord forgive me, sinner that I am,' in church. He said the same prayer now that he was rich, so where was the difference? And when the rich Theodore died he wouldn't be buried in gold and diamonds, but in black earth like the poorest beggar. He would bum in the same fire as cobblers. All this he resented. And then again, he still felt weighed do^ by the meal, and his mind was not on worship, but was assailed by womes about his money chest, about burglars, ; and about his doomed and bartered soul.
He came out ofchurch in a bad temper. To banish evil thoughts he followed his usual procedure of singing at the top of his voice, but barely had he begun when a policeman ran up and saluted.
'Gents mustn't sing in the street, squire. You ain't no cobbler!'
Theodore leant against a fence and began wondering how to amuse himselЈ
'Don't lean too hard on the fence, guv'nor, or you'll dirty your fur coat,' a doorkeeper shouted.
Theodore went into a shop, bought their best concertina, and walked do^ the street playing it. But everyone pointed at him and laughed.
'Cor, look at his lordship!'jeered the cabmen. 'He's carrying on like a cobbler.'
'We can't have the nobs disturbing the peace,' said a policeman. 'You'll be going to the ale-house next!'
'Alms for the love of Christ!' wailed beggars, surrounding Theodore on all sides. 'Give us something, mister.'
Beggars had never paid him any attention when he had been a cobbler, but now they wouldn't leave him alone.
At home he was greeted by his new wife, the lady. She wore a green blouse and a red skirt. He wanted a bit of a cuddle, and had raised his hand to give her a good clout on the back when she spoke angrily.
'Yokel! Bumpkin! You don't know how to treat a lady. Kiss my hand if you love me. Fisticuffs I do not permit.'
'What a bloody life!' thought Theodore. 'What an existence! It's all don't sing, don't play the concertina, don't have fun with your woman. Pshaw!'
No sooner had he sat do^ to tea with his lady than the Devil appeared in his blue spectacles. 'Now, Mr. Cobbler,' said he, 'I've kept my part of the bargain, so sign the paper and come with me. Now you know what being rich means, so that's enough of that!'
He dragged him off to hell, straight to the furnace, and demons flew up, shouting, from all sides.
'Idiot! Blockhead! Jackass!'
There was a fearful smell of paraffin in hell, it was fit to choke yo\L
But suddenly it all vanished. Theodore opened his eyes and saw his table, the boots and the tin lamp. The lamp glass was black, stinking smoke belchcd from the dimly glowing wick as from a chi^ey. The blue-spectacled customer stood near it.
'Idiot! Blockhcad! Jackass!' he was yelling. 'I'll teach you a leson, you rogue! You took my order a fortnight ago, and the boots still aren't ready! Expect me to traipse round here for them half a dozen times a day? Blackguard! Swine!'
Theodore tossed his head and tackled the boots while the customer cursed and threatened him for a rime. When he at last calmed do-wn Theodore sullenly enquired what his occupation was.
'Making Bengal lights and rockets—I'm a manufacturer of fireworks.'
Church bells rang for matins. Theodore handed over the boots, received his money and went to church.
Carriages and sledges with bearskin aprons careered up and downwn the street, whilc merchants, ladies and officers walked the pavement, togcther with humbler folk. But no longer did Theodore envy anyone, or rail against his fate. Rich and poor were equally badly off, he now felt. Some could drive in carriages, others could sing at the top of their voices and play concertinas, but one and the same grave awaited all alike. Nor was therc anything in life to make it wonh giving the Devil even a tiny scrap of your soul.
THE BET
I
Om dark autu^ night an elderly banker was pacing up and do^ his study and recalling the pany that he had given on an autu^ evening fifteen years earlier. It had been attended by a good few clever people, and fascinating discussions had taken place, one of the topics being capital punishment. The guests, including numerous academics and journalists, had been largely opposed to it, considering the death penalty out ofdate, immoral and ^uitable for Christian states. Several of them felt that it should be replaced everywhere by life imprison- ment.
'I disagree,' said their host the banker. 'I've never sampled the death penalty or life imprisonment myself. Still, to judge a priori, I find capital punishment more moral and h^ane than impriso^nent. Execution kills you at once, whereas life impriso^nent does it slowly. Now, which executioner is more h^ane? He who kills you in a few minutes, or he who drags the life out of you over a period of several years?'
A guest remarked that both were equally i^moral. 'Both have the same object—the taking of life. The state isn't God, and it has no right to take what it can't restore if it wishes.'
Among the guests was a young lawyer of about twenty-five. 'The death sentence and the life sentence are equally immoral,' said he when his opinion was canvaued. 'But, if I had to choose between them, I'd certainly choose the second. Any kind of life is better than no life at all.'
A lively argument had ensued. The banker, younger and more excitable in those days, had suddenly got carried away and struck the table with his fist. 'It's not true!' he shouted at the yowig man. 'I bet you two million you wouldn't last five years in solitary confinement.'
Tll take you on if you mean it,' was the reply. 'And I won'tjust do a five-year stretch, I'll do fifteen.'
'Fifteen? Done!' cried the banker. 'Gentlemen, I put up two million.'
'Accepted! You stake your millions and I stake my freedom,' said the yoWlg man.
And so the outrageous, futile wager was made. The banker, then a spoilt and frivolous person, with more millions than he could count, was delighted, and he made fun of the lawyer over supper. 'Think better of it while there's still time,' said he. 'Two million is nothing to me, young man, but you risk losing three or four of the best years of your life, I say three or four because you won't hang on longer. And don't forget, my unfo^^ate friend, that confinement is far harder when it's voluntary than when it's compulsory. The thought that you ^ go free at any moment will poison your whole existence in prison. I'm sorry for you.'
Pacing to and fro, the banker now recalled all 'What was the good of that wager?' he wondered. 'What's the use of the man losing fifteen years of his life? Or of my throwing away two ^^on? Does it prove that the death penalty is better or worse life impriso^ent?
not! Stuff and nonsense! On my part it was a spoilt man's whim, and on his side it was simply greed for money.'
Then he recaUed the sequel to that evening. It had been decided that the young man should serve his term under the strictest supervision in one of the lodges in the banker's garden. For fifteen years he was to be forbidden to ctoh the threshold. to see hu-nan beings, to hear the human voice, to receive letters and newspapers. He was- allowed a musical instrument, and books to read. He could write letters, ^^^ wine, smoke. It was stipulated that his co^rnunications with the out- side world could not be in spoken form, but must take place through a little ^mdow built specially for the p^pose. Anything he needed— books, music, wine and so on—he could receive by sending a note, and in any quantity he liked, but only through the window. The contract covered all the details and minutiae that would make his confinement strictly solitary, and compel him to serve precisely fifteen years from twelve o'clock on the fourteenth of November 1870 until twelve o'clock on the fourteenth of November 1885. The slightest attempt to break the conditions, even two minutes before the end, absolved the banker from all obligation to pay the two million.