I've had
enough of you, and I've no time for fiddle-faddle! It's past twelve,
and I've won!'
The Devil, though still panting, smiled a diabolical smile, and
pulling out his repeater (which he had taken as a perquisite from the
body of a member of Parliament), said, 'I suppose you keep Greenwich
time?'
'Certainly!' said Sir Charles.
'Well,' said the Devil, 'so much the worse for you to live in Suffolk.
You're four minutes fast, so I'll trouble you to come along with me;
and I warn you that any words you now say may be used against...'
At this point the Learned Man's patron saint, who thought things had
gone far enough, materialized himself and coughed gently. They both
looked round, and there was St Charles sitting in the easy chair.
'So far,' murmured the Saint to the Devil suavely, 'so far from being
four minutes too early, you are exactly a year too late.' On saying
this, the Saint smiled a genial, priestly smile, folded his hands,
twiddled his thumbs slowly round and round, and gazed in a fatherly
way at the Devil.
'What do you mean?' shouted the Devil.
'What I say,' said St Charles calmly; '1900 is not the last year of
the nineteenth century; it is the first year of the twentieth.'
'Oh!' sneered the Devil, 'are you an anti-vaccinationist as well?
