‘What is happening?’ whispered Bidderdale.

‘Five minutes Hush,’ explained his guide; ‘it is a sign that the speaker was listened to in silent approval, which is the highest mark of appreciation that can be bestowed in Pandemonium. Let’s come into the smoking-room.’

‘Will the motion be carried?’ asked Bidderdale, wondering inwardly how Sir Edward Grey would treat the protest if it reached the British Parliament, an entente with the Infernal Regions opened up a fascinating vista, in which the Foreign Secretary’s imagination might hopelessly lose itself.

‘Carried? Of course not,’ said the Fiend; ‘in the Infernal Parliament all motions are necessarily lost.’

‘In earthly Parliaments nowadays nearly everything is found,’ said Bidderdale, ‘including salaries and travelling expenses.’

He felt that at any rate he was probably the first member of his family to made a joke in Hell.

‘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 specialised 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 mouse-trap 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.

‘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.

‘Some dramatic authors wouldn’t so very much mind spending eternity poring over a book of contemporary press-cuttings,’ he observed.

The Fiend, laughing unpleasantly, lowered his voice.

‘The letter “S” is missing.’

For the first time Bidderdale realised that he was in Hell.