On the floor, the crumpled shape of a small black kitten staggers to its feet. <Nighthunter.> It says. <Moppet.>

“Very well,” the dragon/cat/critic says, and opens its jaws.

And Jeoffry stops creeping. He springs.

Fire and flood! Wonder and horror! Jeoffry has snatched the sheet of paper from the poet’s trembling hand and swallowed it whole! Snap snap! The paper on the table is eaten too! Snap! And the crumpled drafts on the floor! Jeoffry is a whirlwind of gluttony! As a last measure, he knocks over the ink bottle and laps it up. Glug glug! Take that, Satan!

The devil stands in the center of the cell, cats dangling from his arms. The look on his face is similar to the one he wore at his defeat in the Battle of Heaven, and is only marginally happier than the one he wore on his arrival in Hell. Normally, when Satan wears that expression, it is a sign he is about to begin speechifying. But for once, all his words are gone. They are sitting inside a belching ginger cat, who blinks at the devil and licks his lips.

“Oh hell, cat,” says the devil, letting the half-throttled felines fall to the floor. “What have you done?”

Jeoffry grins at him. He can feel a warm glow inside him that is the poet’s soul, being safely digested. His soul was in the poem, the poet said, and now Jeoffry has eaten it up. The devil cannot have it now.

“No!” the devil shrieks. He rages. He stomps his foot. He puts his hands to his head and tears himself in half, and the separate halves of him explode in angry fireworks.

Then, perhaps thinking better of his dignity, the devil re-manifests and straightens his waistcoat. He glares at Jeoffry. “You,” he says, “have scarred literature forever. You stupid cat.”

With that, the devil turns on his heel and leaves.

The poet in the corner staggers forward. Thank Jesus! he cries. Jeoffry, you have done it!

<And me,> says Black Tom.

<All of us did it,> says Polly.

<The devil forgot his wig,> the Nighthunter Moppet says. Her one good eye narrows.

<Thank you, thank you, my friends,> Jeoffry says. <I am forever obliged for your help in this.> And then he winds himself around the poet and purrs.

That is the story of how the devil came to the madhouse, and was defeated (though not in battle) by the great Jeoffry. There are other stories I could tell, of the sea battles of Black Tom, of Polly’s foray into opera, and of the Nighthunter Moppet’s epic hunt for Satan’s wig, which left a trail of mischief and misery across London for years.

But instead I will end with poetry.