Meeting the Devil at Paddington 

I’m not sure he was the Devil, but I think he might have been.  He didn’t have horns or smell of sulphur, though. Indeed, he looked unmemorably ordinary. It was in Paddington Station, late at night, with massive train delays and cancellations because of bad weather.  I could have cancelled my trip, but I hoped that after a drink there might be a train capable of taking me to my destination.

He was on the stool next to me at the bar, and we struck up a conversation.  It was trivial stuff, as I recall, about how bad the train services were, and how incapable anyone in the UK seemed to be in dealing with bad weather.  At one point, though, for reasons I cannot remember, the subject of Faust came up, and my fellow drinker turned to me and asked me earnestly, “If you were offered everything you wanted in life in return for your immortal soul at the end, would you accept.”  He looked me straight in the eye, and I had the clear and distinct impression that this might have been an offer rather than a question.

If it was an offer, I turned it down, replying no, and telling him that I could get all that anyway.