A Farce To Be Reckoned With

Chapter 5

They waited, but Azzie still didn't come down from his room on the inn's second floor. At last they voted to send Puss to invite him to come down and talk with them.

Puss knocked at the door of Azzie's room with less than her usual bravado.

Azzie opened the door. He was brilliantly dressed in a new long coat of red velvet with an emerald green waistcoat, and his hair was neatly brushed into a shining orange bush. He looked as if he had been waiting for an invitation.

"They want to talk to you," Puss said, pointing at the common room below.

"Good. I've been waiting for this," Azzie said.

He took a final brush at his hair, adjusted his coat, and came downstairs with Puss. The gentlefolk of the pilgrimage were all in the big taproom. The common sort hadn't been consulted, and were outside in the stables gnawing their crusts of bread and their herring heads.

Sir Oliver stood up, made a low bow, and said, "I hope you'll excuse us, sir, but we've been thinking, and, I should say, worrying. If you'd just reassure us, everything would be fine."

"What is the problem?" Azzie asked.

"Well, sir," Oliver said, "to get straight to it, you aren't by any chance a demon, sir, are you?"

"As a matter of fact," Azzie said, "I am."

A gasp arose from those assembled.

"That," said Oliver, "is not what I wanted to hear. You don't really mean it, do you? Please, just say it isn't so!"

"But it is so," Azzie said. "I showed you proofs earlier, just to get over and done with the tedious part of convincing you. Have I succeeded in doing so?"

"You have indeed, sir!" Oliver said, and Mother Joanna nodded.

"Fine," said Azzie. "Then we know where we stand."

"Thank you, sir. Now would you be so kind as to go away and leave us in peace to continue our holy pilgrimage?"

"Don't be silly," Azzie said. "I've gone to a lot of trouble to get this thing set up. I have an offer to make."

"Oh, my God!" Sir Oliver said. "A deal with the Devil!"

"Stop acting so," Azzie said. "Just hear me out. If you don't like my offer, you needn't take me up on it, and we're quits of each other."

"You really mean that?"

"On my honor as a Prince of Darkness." Azzie wasn't really a Prince of Darkness at all, but it did no harm to exaggerate a trifle among all these highborn gentlemen and ladies.

"I suppose it'll do no harm to hear you out," Sir Oliver said.