It was but natural under such circumstances that Man should be in no great
hurry to move. Lucifer grew impatient.

"It is a pity," said he at last, "that we did not fix some period within
which the player must move, or resign."

"Oh, Lucifer," returned the young man, in heart-rending accents, "it is not
the impending loss of my soul that thus unmans me, but the loss of my
betrothed. When I think of the grief of the Lady Adeliza, that paragon of
terrestrial loveliness!" Tears choked his utterance; Lucifer was touched.

"Is the Lady Adeliza's loveliness in sooth so transcendent?" he inquired.

"She is a rose, a lily, a diamond, a morning star!"

"If that is the case," rejoined Lucifer, "thou mayest reassure thyself. The
Lady Adeliza shall not want for consolation. I will assume thy shape and
woo her in thy stead."

The young man hardly seemed to receive all the comfort from this promise
which Lucifer no doubt designed. He made a desperate move. In an instant
the Devil checkmated him, and he disappeared.

* * * * *

"Upon my word, if I had known what a business this was going to be, I don't
think I should have gone in for it," soliloquised the Devil, as, wearing
his captive's semblance and installed in his apartments, he surveyed the
effects to which he now had to administer. They included coats, shirts,
collars, neckties, foils, cigars, and the like _ad libitum_; and very
little else except three challenges, ten writs, and seventy-four unpaid
bills, elegantly disposed around the looking-glass. To the poor youth's
praise be it said, there were no billets-doux, except from the Lady Adeliza
herself.

Noting the address of these carefully, the Devil sallied forth, and nothing
but his ignorance of the topography of the hotel, which made him take the
back stairs, saved him from the clutches of two bailiffs lurking on the
principal staircase. Leaping into a cab, he thus escaped a perfumer and a
bootmaker, and shortly found himself at the Lady Adeliza's feet.

The truth had not been half told him. Such beauty, such wit, such
correctness of principle! Lucifer went forth from her presence a love-sick
fiend. Not Merlin's mother had produced half the impression upon him; and
Adeliza on her part had never found her lover one-hundredth part so
interesting as he seemed that morning.

Lucifer proceeded at once to the City, where, assuming his proper shape
for the occasion, he negotiated a loan w