Then Satan began to chat again, and soon he was sparkling along in such a cheerful and vivacious vein that my spirits rose once more.

He told some very cunning things that put us in a gale of laughter; and when he was telling about the time that Samson tied the torches to the foxes' tails and set them loose in the Philistines' corn, and Samson sitting on the fence slapping his thighs and laughing, with the tears running down his cheeks, and lost his balance and fell off the fence, the memory of that picture got him to laughing, too, and we did have a most lovely and jolly time.

By and by he said: "I am going on my errand now." "Don't!" we all said.

"Don't go; stay with us.

You won't come back." "Yes, I will; I give you my word." "When?
To-night?
Say when." "It won't be long.