“We haven’t all your facilities,” said the Fiend; “we’ve nothing down here that exactly corresponds to the Master of Elibank.”

At this moment Bidderdale’s attention was caught by an item on a loose sheet of agenda paper: “Vote on account of special Hells.”

“Ah,” he said, “I’ve often heard the expression ‘there is a special Hell reserved for such-and-such a type of person.’ Do tell me about them.”

“I’ll show you one in course of preparation,” said the Fiend, leading him down the corridor. “This one is designed to accommodate one of the leading playwrights of your nation. You may observe scores of imps engaged in pasting notices of modern British plays into a huge press-cutting book, each under the name of the author, alphabetically arranged. The book will contain nearly half a million notices, I suppose, and it will form the sole literature supplied to this specially doomed individual.”

Bidderdale was not altogether impressed.