The Tunnel: The Note

A month had passed. The Devil figured that would be long enough, that Barthalomew Grisby would have given up, would have seen the wretched light and have rent his clothes in abject boredom. But, when arriving at the place where they had last met, he found the mouth of a tunnel that must have stretched through the outer walls of the underworld for some distance, and a note that read thus:

      "Dear Devil. I've dug myself out. Feel free to do what you will with the tunnel. I won't be coming back. Nice meeting you, Bart."

      The Devil numbly loosed hold of the sliver of paper and stood in awe and wonder before the lateral abyss. This man Grisby had done what no human or beast had dared since the Greeks--he had left.