a figure stood at my bedside--a figure much like that in the flames on the old stained-glass window at St. Paul's. He wore horns too, but certainly he had the manners of a gentleman. Of course we all know he is one. It's in the Bible, or Shakespeare, or somewhere."
"A fiend, grandpapa!"
"The devil himself, my dear, and a very tidy personage too. Bless your life, he bowed and scraped like a Frenchman, apologised for troubling me at such a late hour, handed me my glasses, that I might the better see the friendly look on his face, and then asked me if I could spare him ten minutes. You know nothing ever alarms me. I'm 'saved,' if I understand Parson Murdoch rightly; and, therefore I've no need to be bothered about the other place or anybody in it."
"Don't talk like that, grandpapa."
"Why not? 'Well, fire away, Nicholas,' I said, 'but candidly you've come to the wrong man, if you imagine you'll do any business here. I was off your books five years ago. You know that well enough.' 'Daniel,' he answered, with more familiarity than I cared about, 'Daniel, it is only because you were on my books for ninety-five years that I've dropped in this evening. One good turn deserves another. You are probably not aware that, in the ordinary course of events, to-morrow morning--the morning of your hundredth birthday--will never come for you. The sun will rise and find you lifeless clay; your granddaughter will knock at your chamber door and receive no answer; for your days are numbered, your span of life, handsome enough in all conscience, is done. But listen, I can guarantee ten more years. We only do these things for very old customers. Put yourself in my hands and ten more mundane years of life shall be yours.'"
Here my grandpapa broke off to chuckle, which he did very heartily. Then he took snuff, and it dropped about his shirt-front, where the poached egg had already fallen, and imparted to the dear old man his usual appearance.
"'What are the terms, Nick?' I asked," continued grandpapa. "'The ordinary terms, Daniel,' he answered. 'This is a little private speculation of my own, and I want to point out the beauties of it to you, because it's a bit out of the common, even for me. You see, Daniel, as a rule we grant these extensions only to gentlemen in dire distress--on the days before executions and so forth. But in your case you might justly consider that no offer of increased life was worth accepting. You are right. More it would be. A man cannot get any solid satisfaction out of life after he is a hundred years old. The body at that age is a mere clog; eating and drinking become a farce; the pleasures of sense are dead. As to brain, even that's only a broken box full of tangled threads. Intellectual enjoyments are no longer for you. Not, of course, that they were ever your strong point. You can only sit in the chimney corner now, and blink and sleep, and wait for Death to come and roll you over with his pole-axe, like the worn-out old animal you are. No, you shan't grow older, Dan, you shall grow younger if you please. You shall cram another lifetime into the ten years which I promise. Each of them will extend over a period of ten earthly years. That is the offer. It should work out well for both of us. Read this. I had the thing drafted; in fact, I did it myself to save time.' Then he handed me a form of agreement duly stamped."
"My dear grandpapa, what an extraordinary nightmare!"
"It was. I read the bond critically, and, for reasons which I cannot now remember, determined to sign it."
"Grandfather!"
"Well, it was only a dream. Ten years more life, remember. That was worth a slight sacrifice."
"A slight sacrifice, grandpapa!"
"Anyhow, I said I'd sign, and Nick took a red feather out of his cap in a twinkling. 'A matter of form,' he said, 'one drop of venous blood is all we shall require.' Then he dug the pen into my shoulder and politely handed it to me. 'Of course witnesses in these cases are very inconvenient,' proceeded Nick, 'but between gentlemen our bonds will be sufficiently binding.' So I signed, and he bowed and wished me joy and went up the chimney. But a funny coincidence is that this morning my shoulder has a round red mark upon it like a burn."
"A flea, dearest one."
"Possibly. In fact that is how I explained it to myself. As you know, a dream often occupies the briefest flash of time, and it may be that some chance insect biting my shoulder produced a moment's irritation, and was responsible for the entire vision. But I still think it may have been that tapioca pudden. Mind you are more careful with my food in the future."
CHAPTER II.
IN THE CUPBOARD.
We laughed the matter off, and should probably have forgotten all about it but that grandpapa suffered a great deal of inconvenience with his shoulder. The round, red mark gathered and grew very painful. Indeed it only yielded to a long course of bread poultices. Thanks to tonics, however, he soon recovered his health; and then it seemed that his splendid constitution had almost enabled him to take a new lease of life. He actually gained strength instead of losing it, and his faculties became clearer if anything. We lived in Ealing, Middlesex, at the time, and when my grandpapa's health was thoroughly re-established, his medical man wrote to the Lancet, and a deputation waited on my grandfather from the local Liberal Club to congratulate him. The dear old fellow became quite a celebrity in his way, and, what is more, there was no backsliding; he went to church with me every Sunday in a bath chair, and at home he kept his temper better, and nearly always did what he was told.
But six months after his birthday the thunder-cloud burst upon our little home. I was sitting in the parlour, doing household accounts, and grandpapa was in his own room, playing the flute. He had not touched this instrument for at least five years, but to my amazement, that afternoon he dragged it out of some old cupboard and began to play it, with runs and shakes and false notes, just in the old pleasant way. He stopped suddenly, however, after giving a very creditable rendering of the "Old Hundredth." I feared this effort had been too much for him, and was just hastening upstairs when he came hurrying down and tottered into the room. Fright and dismay sat on his wrinkled face; his knees shook and knocked together, his eyes protruded like a crab's, and his poor old jaws were going like a pair of nut-crackers, but he could not speak.
"My dearest, what is it?" I cried, running to him as he subsided on the sofa. "Oh, why will you be so active at your time of life? You'll kill yourself if you go on so. What have you done now? You've strained something internal with that flute--I know you have."
"I've found it! I've found it!" he cried, trembling all over.
"Of course, or else you couldn't play it," I replied.
"I've found IT," he repeated, raising his hand wildly and waving a manuscript over his head. "Read that--Oh, why was I ever born? Read it, I tell you. It's a real agreement, on parchment, not a nightmare at all. He's got the other, no doubt; the one I signed. I've bartered away my immortal soul for ten more years of horrible life, and I'm growing younger every moment!"
"Where did this come from?" was all I could say, taking a parchment scroll from my grandpapa's shaking hand.
"It fell out of the cupboard where I keep my flute music," he groaned. "Read it, read it slowly, aloud. Is there any escape? It seems very loosely worded. Oh why, why didn't Jack live? He would have got me out of this appalling fix if anybody could."
Jack, or John, was my father--a very able solicitor; but what law is capable of coping with utterly unprincipled people who live in another world? I read the thing. It was written in English, and signed with a strange scrawl, like a flash of black lightning. Attached to it hung a seal of flame-coloured wax. To show
