cover that, like
ourselves, he wastes most of his time on trifles. But we had better
leave that alone; we are not children that break their best toys in
order to discover what is in them.

The devil once wandered over the cemetery in the darkness of an autumn
night: he felt lonely and whistled softly as he looked around himself
in search of a distraction. He whistled an old song--my father's
favourite song,--

"When, in autumnal days,
A leaf from its branch is torn
And on high by the wind is borne."

And the wind sang with him, soughing over the graves and among the
black crosses, and heavy autumnal clouds slowly crawled over the
heaven and with their cold tears watered the narrow dwellings of the
dead. The mournful trees in the cemetery timidly creaked under the
strokes of the wind and stretched their bare branches to the
speechless clouds. The branches were now and then caught by the
crosses, and then a dull, shuffling, awful sound passed over the
churchyard....

The devil was whistling, and he thought:

"I wonder how the dead feel in such weather! No doubt, the dampness
goes down to them, and although they are secure against rheumatism
ever since the day of their death, yet, I suppose, they do not feel
comfortable. How, if I called one of them up and had a talk with him?
It would be a little distraction for me, and, very likely, for him
also. I will call him! Somewhere around here they have buried an old
friend of mine, an author.... I used to visit him when he was alive
... why not renew our acquaintance? People of his kind are dreadfully
exacting. I shall find out whether the grave satisfies him completely.
But where is his grave?"

And the devil who, as is well known, knows everything, wandered for a
long time about the cemetery, before he found the author's grave....

"Oh there!" he called out as he knocked with his claws at the heavy
stone under which his acquaintance was put away.

"Get up!"

"What for?" came the dull answer from below.

"I need you."

"I won't get up."

"Why?"

"Who are you, anyway?"

"You know me."

"The censor?"

"Ha, ha, ha! No!"

"Maybe a secret policeman?"

"No, no!"

"Not a critic, either?"

"I am the devil."

"Well, I'll be out in a minute."

The stone lifted itself from the grave, the earth burst open, and a
skeleton came out of it. It was a very common skeleton, just the kind
that students study anatomy by: only it was dirty, had no wire