es, 'Your Holiness,' or 'Your Infernal Majesty' be the form of
address most befitting me to employ."

"Bub-ub-bub-boo," went Lucifer, who still had the gag in his mouth.

"Heavens!" exclaimed the Cardinal, "I crave your Infernal Holiness's
forgiveness. What a lamentable oversight!"

And, relieving Lucifer from his gag and bonds, he set out the refection,
upon which the demon fell voraciously.

"Why the devil, if I may so express myself," pursued Anno, "did not your
Holiness inform us that you _were_ the devil? Not a hand would then have
been raised against you. I have myself been seeking all my life for the
audience now happily vouchsafed me. Whence this mistrust of your faithful
Anno, who has served you so loyally and zealously these many years?"

Lucifer pointed significantly to the gag and fetters.

"I shall never forgive myself," protested the Cardinal, "for the part I
have borne in this unfortunate transaction. Next to ministering to your
Majesty's bodily necessities, there is nothing I have so much at heart as
to express my penitence. But I entreat your Majesty to remember that I
believed myself to be acting in your Majesty's interest by overthrowing a
magician who was accustomed to send your Majesty upon errands, and who
might at any time enclose you in a box, and cast you into the sea. It is
deplorable that your Majesty's most devoted servants should have been thus
misled."

"Reasons of State," suggested Lucifer.

"I trust that they no longer operate," said the Cardinal. "However, the
Sacred College is now fully possessed of the whole matter: it is therefore
unnecessary to pursue this department of the subject further. I would now
humbly crave leave to confer with your Majesty, or rather, perhaps, your
Holiness, since I am about to speak of spiritual things, on the important
and delicate point of your Holiness's successor. I am ignorant how long
your Holiness proposes to occupy the Apostolic chair; but of course you are
aware that public opinion will not suffer you to hold it for a term
exceeding that of the pontificate of Peter. A vacancy, therefore, must one
day occur; and I am humbly to represent that the office could not be filled
by one more congenial than myself to the present incumbent, or on whom he
could more fully rely to carry out in every respect his views and
intentions."

And the Cardinal proceeded to detail various circumstances of his past
life, which certainly seemed to corroborate his