“By the way,” he added, “talking of earthly Parliaments, have you got the Party system down here?”

“In Hell? Impossible. You see we have no system of rewards. We have specialized so thoroughly on punishments that the other branch has been entirely neglected. And besides, Government by delusion, as you practise it in your Parliament, would be unworkable here. I should be the last person to say anything against temptation, naturally, but we have a proverb down here ‘in baiting a mousetrap with cheese, always leave room for the mouse.’ Such a party-cry, for instance, as your ‘ninepence for fourpence’ would be absolutely inoperative; it not only leaves no room for the mouse, it leaves no room for the imagination. You have a saying in your country, I believe, ‘there’s no fool like a damned fool’; all the fools down here are, necessarily, damned, but⁠—you wouldn’t get them to nibble at ninepence for fourpence.”

“Couldn’t they be scolded and lectured into believing it, as a sort of moral and intellectual duty?” asked Bidderdale.