Peter-Bowman awoke in a thirsty place. No. There was not an extended ellipsis in there. Go away. Peter-Bowman awoke and thought that the best thing he could do would be to have a drink because his tongue felt as if it had recently been used to clean way old cat litter. (Fortunately for Peter-Bowman, he did not know that the reason that his tongue felt like that was because that was precisely what his tongue had been used for). Luckily, there was a pitcher of ice cold water within reach. Rather unluckily, he appeared to be out of arms. This was a new experience for Peter-Bowman. He had always had arms before, and having no arms at all came as rather a surprise. The lack of legs was only to be expected. Peter-Bowman had long been of the opinion that his legs were only there as decoration. This meant that suddenly not having any legs was of minor concern. The lack of arms was a little more disconcerting. His arms were very useful in attaching his hands to his body. Peter-Bowman's feet did a merry jig on the other side of the room. He told them to shut up. His hands were twiddling their thumbs, being as they could think of no more useful occupation when they had no arms to provide suitable transport. No way were they going to start walking around by themselves. That was what feet did, and Peter-Bowman's hands did not want to associate themselves with something as disreputable as feet. Peter-Bowman began to think that all was not going as planned.

'Hello?', he ventured. 'Is there any body around?' Peter-Bowman had just realised that he was also lacking a torso, and indeed most of the more traditional bodily accoutrements He had a head, some dancing feet, and a pair of uncooperative hands. This was little material with which to make a start of life, but Peter-Bowman was always an optimistic sort of chap and eventually persuaded his feet to kick him into an upright position and upend the pitcher. He found himself sitting in a puddle of water and began to noisily slurp it up his neck. The relief was immeasurable. Peter-Bowman allowed the water to swirl around his mouth before swallowing it, at which point he discovered he could suck it back up again. This was a very useful trick to learn, as the air of the room was beginning to rise quite rapidly now, but the stone floor was still quite cool. Peter-Bowman discovered that he could suck water up through his neck, and then open his mouth, allow some of the heat from the air to enter the water. Then he swallowed the water back down onto the cold floor where the heat dissipated. By repeating this action several times Peter-Bowman turned his head into a sort of make shift air conditioner. This kept his hands and feet from getting sweaty and horrible. Peter-Bowman enjoyed being an air conditioner so much that he kept it up for twenty four hours and only stopped when interrupted by the return of the Devil.

'Hallo then Peter-Bowman.' The Devil had quite an impressive voice. I suggest you read it out loud in a deep booming voice. Possibly speaking into some sort of empty jar would help. I expect you thought that the Devil would say 'Hello', rather than 'Hallo', didn't you? This has nothing to do with regional dialects and so on, it's just that whenever the Devil says 'Hell', flames shout out of his ears. Usually this is a useful thing, as in 'Welcome to Hell!' (ear flames, really scary stuff, a small Labrador in a clown suit, and all the rest of it, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about). But it's a bit of an overkill when it comes to private conversations, so the Devil generally goes with 'Hallo' rather then risk singeing anything at a time of non singeworthiness.

'Peter-Bowman, you have been brought here because you dared to have a thirteenth segment in your life. This clearly makes your soul my property. But I have decided to give you a second chance. For twenty four hours you have been confined in the Sweat Chamber of Fiendish Contrivance. The sky was fire, the floor was ice, and there was no way of reaching the pitcher of iced water to relieve your agonies. Now that your hands and feet must be horrible and sweaty, I have a number of challenges for you to complete. Complete them, and you go free. Fail and you are doomed. By the way, here is your body back.' The Devil sat back on his monstrously self adjusting throne (it adjusts its location in such a way as to be always behind the Devil when he sits down, but never there at any other time. It's a mystery, but nobody's been able to catch it and force it to answer questions. The Devil finds it more convenient than lugging a sofa around at any rate, and doesn't really care if people find the whole thing just a touch bizarre).

The first task was simply to hang from a suspended bar for a minute. Had his hands been as sweaty as the Devil believed them to be, Peter-Bowman would have been in a lot of trouble. Luckily his cunning plan of using his head as an air conditioner had paid off, and left him with sweat free palms. This is something to remember the next time you are captured by the Devil and thrown into a really hot room. Keep your palms dry at all costs. This is very important information and should most likely be tattooed on to the back of your hand so you won't forget.

The second task was a little more complicated. Peter-Bowman had to take of his shoes, and inhale deeply. That wasn't the tricky part. The tricky part was that he had to do this without passing out. Now for most people, having been locked in a sweat inducer for a day with no chance to remove their shoes, this might be a problem. Not so for Peter-Bowman, as you may have guessed by now. He passed with flying colours and thanked the Devil for a most enjoyable experience. The Devil was rather upset by this outcome and considered turning Peter-Bowman into a frog of some kind, but luckily before he could do so he remembered that he wasn't actually a witch and so didn't know how.

The non amphibious Peter-Bowman was returned to his phone box unharmed, though he did develop a habit of talking to his feet that many people found somewhat disconcerting.