Daniel Defoe, at the invitation of the judge, came forth from the garret wherein he abode, and rode in a cart unto the Royal Exchange, wherein he ascended the pillory, to the end that his ears might be nailed thereunto.  And much people stood before him, some few pelting, some mocking, but the most part cheering or weeping, for they knew him for a friend to the poor, and especially those men who were called Dissenters.  And a certain person in black stood by him, invisible to the people, but well seen of Daniel, who knew him for one whose life he had himself written.  And the man in black reasoned with Daniel, and said, “Thou seest this multitude of people, but which of them shall deliver thee out of my hand?  Nay, but let thy white be black, and thy black white, and I myself will deliver thee, and make thee rich, and heal thy hurts, save the holes in thy ears, that I may know thee for mine own.”  But Daniel gave no heed to him.  So the Devil departed, having great wrath, and entered into a certain smug-faced man standing by.

And now the crowd before Daniel was greatly diminished, and consisted mainly of his enemies, for his friends had gone away to drown their sorrow.  And the smug-faced man into whom Satan had entered came forth from among them, and said unto him, “O Daniel, inasmuch as I am a Dissenter I am greatly beholden to thee; but inasmuch as I am an honest tradesman I have somewhat against thee, for thou hast written concerning short weights and measures.  And a man’s shop is more to him than his country or his religion.  Wherefore I must needs be avenged of thee.  Yet shalt thou own that the tender mercies of the good man are piteous, and that even in his wrath he thinketh upon compassion.”

And he picked up a great stone from the ground, and wrapped it in a piece of paper, saying, “Lest peradventure it hurt him overmuch.”  And the stone was very rough and sharp, and the paper was very thin.  And he hurled it with all his might at the middle of Daniel’s forehead, and the blood spouted forth.  And Daniel cried aloud, and called upon the name of the Devil.  And in an instant the pillory and the people were gone, and he found himself in the Prime Minister’s cabinet, healed of all his hurts, except the holes in his ears.  And the Minister was so like the Devil that you could not tell the difference.  And he said, “Against what wilt thou write first, Daniel?”

“Dissenters,” said Daniel.

And he wrote a pamphlet, and such as read it took firebrands, and visited the Dissenters in their habitations.  And many Dissenters were put into prison, and others fined and spoiled of their goods.  And he wrote other pamphlets, and each was cleverer and wickeder than the last.  And whatsoever Daniel had of old declared to be white, lo! it was black; and what he had said was black, behold! it was white.  And he throve and prospered exceedingly, and became a commissioner for public-houses and hackney-coaches and the imposing of oaths and the levying of custom, and all other such things as one does by deputy.  And he mended the holes in his ears.