“Reasons of State,” suggested Lucifer.

“I trust that they no longer operate,” said the Cardinal.  “However, the Sacred College is now fully possessed of the whole matter:  it is therefore unnecessary to pursue this department of the subject further.  I would now humbly crave leave to confer with your Majesty, or rather, perhaps, your Holiness, since I am about to speak of spiritual things, on the important and delicate point of your Holiness’s successor.  I am ignorant how long your Holiness proposes to occupy the Apostolic chair; but of course you are aware that public opinion will not suffer you to hold it for a term exceeding that of the pontificate of Peter.  A vacancy, therefore, must one day occur; and I am humbly to represent that the office could not be filled by one more congenial than myself to the present incumbent, or on whom he could more fully rely to carry out in every respect his views and intentions.”

And the Cardinal proceeded to detail various circumstances of his past life, which certainly seemed to corroborate his assertion.  He had not, however, proceeded far ere he was disturbed by the grating of another key in the lock, and had just time to whisper impressively, “Beware of Benno,” ere he dived under a table.

Benno was also provided with a lamp, wine, and cold viands.  Warned by the other lamp and the remains of Lucifer’s repast that some colleague had been beforehand with him, and not knowing how many more might be in the field, he came briefly to the point as regarded the Papacy, and preferred his claim in much the same manner as Anno.  While he was earnestly cautioning Lucifer against this Cardinal as one who could and would cheat the very Devil himself, another key turned in the lock, and Benno escaped under the table, where Anno immediately inserted his finger into his right eye.  The little squeal consequent upon this occurrence Lucifer successfully smothered by a fit of coughing.

Cardinal No. 3, a Frenchman, bore a Bayonne ham, and exhibited the same disgust as Benno on seeing himself forestalled.  So far as his requests transpired they were moderate, but no one knows where he would have stopped if he had not been scared by the advent of Cardinal No. 4.  Up to this time he had only asked for an inexhaustible purse, power to call up the Devil ad libitum, and a ring of invisibility to allow him free access to his mistress, who was unfortunately a married woman.

Cardinal No. 4 chiefly wanted to be put into the way of poisoning Cardinal No. 5; and Cardinal No. 5 preferred the same petition as respected Cardinal No. 4.

Cardinal No. 6, an Englishman, demanded the reversion of the Archbishoprics of Canterbury and York, with the faculty of holding them together, and of unlimited non-residence.  In the course of his harangue he made use of the phrase non obstantibus, of which Lucifer immediately took a note.