Once again the Chapel resounded with that startling and lewd raspberry, and I became aware that though the Devil chose to appear in the guise of a gentleman of impeccable contemporary taste, all those other aspects of his personality, including the one with the seven dragons’ heads and the one with the unconventionally placed tongue, were present, though invisible.

“Intellectual honesty just means playing by your rules,” said he, “and I like to play by my own, which I make up as we go along. Do you think I am so stupid I can only hold one point of view at a time? Why, even you foolish creatures of earth can do better than that. I enjoy being sentimental about Christmas; after all, it is my Younger Brother’s birthday. But don’t imagine that because of that I don’t take every opportunity to make it distasteful.”

He paused, and I could see that he was in a mood both reminiscent and boastful, so I held my peace, and very soon he continued.

“I think the Christmas card was one of my best inventions,” he said. “Yes, I think the Christmas card has done as much to put Christmas to the bad as any other single thing. And I began it so cleverly; just a few pretty Victorian printed greetings, and then—well, you know what it is today.”

I nodded, and rubbed my arm, which was still aching with writer’s cramp.

“Gifts, too,” he mused. “Of course they originated with the Gifts of the Magi. I knew the Magi well, you know. Gaspar, Balthazar and Melchior—very good chaps and their offerings of gold, frankincense and myrrh were characteristic of their noble hearts. But when I got to work on their idea and spread the notion that everybody ought to give a Christmas gift to virtually everybody else I was really at the top of my form. The cream of it is, you see, that most people want to give presents to people they like, but I have made it obligatory for them to give presents to people they don’t like, as well. Look at it any way you will, that was subtle—downright subtle.”

It sickened me to see that the breakdown in his style of conversation was accompanied by a coarsening in his appearance. He was now red-faced, heavy-jowled and wet-lipped. And somewhere in the background I could hear the seven heads of the red dragon hissing like great serpents.

“Santa Claus,—yes, Santa Claus is all mine,” he continued. “Look at his picture here on your reredos—St. Nicholas the Wonder Worker. A fine old chap. I knew him very well when he was bishop of Myra. Loved giving gifts. Lavish and open-handed as only a saint knows how to be. But when I went to work, and advertising got into high gear, the job was done. Now you see his picture everywhere—a boozy old bum in a red suit peddling everything you can think of; magazine subscriptions, soft drinks, junk jewellery, dairy products, electric hair driers, television sets, Wettums Dolls—you name it, Santa’s got it. I meet Saint Nicholas now and then; he’s still in existence, trying to rescue Christmas, and I don’t mind telling you that when we meet I’m almost ashamed to look him in the face. Almost, but not quite.”

By this time the degeneration of the Devil had gone very far indeed. His beautiful dress suit was a crumpled mess, his hair had become thin and greasy, his stomach and also his posterior had swollen so that he was positively pear-shaped, and the handkerchief he pulled out to wipe tears of cruel mirth from his eyes was disgustingly dirty.

I had no idea what to do. I felt that the situation was desperate. And then I had an idea.

There is a form of activity very popular now in education, called “counselling”. Several times each year I receive letters which say, “What counselling staff do you provide in your College?” and I always reply with a monosyllable—”Me”. Obviously this was the moment for some counselling, and all that held me back was a strong conviction that counselling, too, had been invented by the Devil. Would he fall for his own nonsense? I could but try.

“You came here to look at our reredos,” said I, putting my arm around his shoulders in what I hoped was a fatherly, yet respectful manner. “Look at it now, and think of your old home, of your family. Unfortunately we have no likeness of your Father—”

“The Michelangelo portrait is by far the best,” he interrupted; “catches Him to a T.”

“—but look here, at your brothers—the Archangel Michael, the Archangel Gabriel. How handsome they are! Observe what fine physical condition they are in, despite an age almost equal to your own. Remember that you too were once like that—”

I quickly removed my embracing arm; all the disgusting symptoms of spiritual and physical degeneration had fled in that instant, and he stood beside me, naked as the dawn, and equipped with splendid black wings. “I am like that now,” he said proudly. But to my astonishment, I saw that the Devil was a richly endowed hermaphrodite. Still, five years of Massey College has prepared me for any unusual development.

“Good—ah—archangel!” I cried. And then I brought out the tried-and-true counsellor’s phrase of encouragement. “You see, you can do anything if only you will try. Now, this dreadful assault on Christmas is unworthy of you. Don’t you think you’ve done enough? People still celebrate Christmas, you know, in a spirit quite outside the reach of the Christmas card, the perfunctory gift, the degraded figure of Santa Claus—” I was set to go on, for I was thinking of tonight, and of all of us here, but the Devil looked balefully at me.

“Yes, but it is all for Him—my Younger Brother, you know. One would imagine nobody else had ever had a birthday. Nobody celebrates my birthday.” I looked, and I assure you he was pouting.

I am not a professor of drama for nothing: I know a cue when I hear one.

“Grieve no more,” I said; “I will celebrate your birthday.”

“Pooh,” he said; “who are you?”

“Aha,” said I; “you are trying to trap me into the sin of Pride. Nevertheless, without my telling you, you know very well who I am.”

He had the grace to look somewhat abashed. “Well, be that as it may, who’s going to know?”

“The whole College will know,” said I.

“Pooh! The College!” said he, rudely, but he was wavering.

“It’s a graduate College,” said I; “more than that, it’s a think-tank.” I knew the Devil could not resist a really up-to-the-minute bit of jargon.

“It’s a bargain,” he said. “What will you do?”

“I’ll fly the College banner and the St. Catharine bell will ring twenty-one times.”

“Just as if I were one of the Fellows?” he asked, and there was a gleam in his eyes which looked very much like pleasure.

“Precisely the same,” I replied. “Now, what is the date?”

He hesitated, but only for a moment. “Do you know, I’ve never told a soul. It’s—” and he whispered the date into my ear. His breath made my ear disagreeably hot, but today I notice I hear better with it than the other.

Everybody says the Devil has a vulgar streak, but they are the very same people who will say, on other occasions, that he is a gentleman. This was the side of his character he chose to show now.

“You are really most considerate,” he continued, “and I should like to make some suitable return. What would you like—don’t restrict your ambitions, please.”

Not a word would I say, and almost at once the Devil laughed again—that silvery laugh I had heard before. “Of course, I quite understand, you are thinking of Faust. But he only gave me a rather shopworn soul; you have given me something nobody ever offered me before—the most cherished privilege of a Fellow of Massey College. But come—if you won’t have anything for yourself, will you accept something for the College? What about a handsome endowment? Academics always want money. Name your figure!”

But the Devil had underestimated me. I know what makes colleges, and it isn’t money—delightful though money is. This time it was my eyes that were fixed on the reredos. At the extreme of the third row of pictures is one that very few people recognize. It is a symbol so extraordinary, so deep in significance and broad in application that even Professor Marshall McLuhan has not been able to explode it. It is the Santa Sophia, the Ultimate Wisdom.