Peter-Bowman paused and considered his existence so far. It appeared to have been comprised of twelve segments, of a sort. He blinked and realised that this must mean that he had woken this morning in the thirteenth segment of his existence. He chuckled, and was glad that he was not superstitious. 'If I was superstitious, I expect that this would be a most threatening segment indeed. It's lucky that I'm not.' Peter-Bowman set about the task of cleaning out his phone box. This consisted of standing outside while representatives of the phone company made away with any dirt or dirt related garbage they discovered inside. Peter-Bowman made it a point of always tipping them when they had finished. This seemed to puzzle them slightly, but they always took the money. Peter-Bowman had long ago discovered that people are always willing to be tipped. Unless rivers are involved. Rivers and tipping mix about as well as gin and coke.

It is a little known fact that the Devil is an exceedingly superstitious individual. He also enjoys tipping people into rivers. This is because he is often rather nasty. Nasty people are often also superstitious. They will never walk under a ladder for example, or allow a black cat to cross their path. Nasty people will go to great lengths to avoid these situations. For example, when you or I (provided you are not a nasty person - I know that I am not and make a polite assumption in your case) approaches a ladder or a black cat, we would be inclined to pat it gently and give it friendly compliments. No superstition there. When a nasty person approaches a ladder or a black cat, he (or she - though it is true that more nasty people are male than female. This is not sexist, it is a certified fact of life that is mentioned most days in the more reputable newspapers) would be inclined to wait until somebody was descending the ladder and then give it a gentle push that guaranteed the black cat would be squished and the descendee would be tipped into the nearest river. Come to think of it, this may not actually be superstition, but just pure nastiness. That's a lot more likely now I come to actually consider the matter. However, the Devil is both nasty and superstitious. He really has to be and should not be blamed for it. It's part of of the job description after all. Just as you would not go around blaming a policeman for being law abiding (well, OK, it would be difficult to find one to realistically blame for that without getting laughed at, but you get the general drift), one should not blame the Devil for being nasty and superstitious. There would be little point in having a friendly, socially well adjusted Devil with no hang ups who came to the church picnic and played volleyball, for example. It would be very embarrassing really. The infernal fires of hell would probably set the ball on fire, and then there's the trip to the emergency room - would you like to have to explain that one? and the resultant fiendish apologies visited on you by demons in the middle of the night brandishing pointy sticks and screaming in agonising five and a half part harmony 'He's really sorry and won't do it again, are we still on for next Saturday?' Who needs that?

The Devil is in fact so superstitious that by the time anybody gets around to mentioning 'Thirteen' he has already shouldered 'Twelve' out of the way, leaving her precious little time to pack her bags and call a taxi. In addition to being nasty and superstitious, the Devil can be often quite rude. I have it on good authority that the reason for this behaviour is largely because the Devil has somehow discovered a belief that if he were not to show up with sparklers and a tin whistle for every mention of 'Thirteen' ever manifested, he would suddenly cease to exist. Or perhaps just lose all his powers and have to become a much lower functionary in the circles of Hell. Being as the Devil would much rather be a dark overlord than become a lavatory attendant in a railway station, you can be assured that any mention of the number 'Thirteen' gets him running. This can be used to great effect should you wish to torment the Devil. Thirt ........... y white horses came over the hill at a gallop and realised they were really thir .......... sty. 'Thirtee .......... th' said the farrier with a heavy accent, 'Are rawly white.' If you have ever run dripping from a shower with a towel half around your dangly bits to answer a phone that stopped ringing the moment you picked it up, you may have a small understanding of the effect such sentences have on the Devil. Except that the distance between the fires of hell and these sentences is rather greater, and the towel keeps burning up leaving the Devil annoyingly exposed. And quite angry it seems. He's jumping up and down here now, really didn't like that at all. Ah. Yes. That is quite painful, actually. I might just say that such practical jokes are perhaps best not performed. Unless you are wearing some form of asbestos underwear. Indeed. Yes. I see. Well, I must say it's rather rude of you to come barging in here and ... OK. No, I don't think I will do it again, if it's all the same to you. Ah. You can see that the Devil is a Nasty Person. And superstitious.

It will come as no surprise that the Devil was all for having a Thirteenth chapter. Peter-Bowman, lacking in superstition and not being particularly nasty, has made a rather serious error in judgement in deciding that the thirteenth segment of his existence was no more to be feared than any other.

While Peter-Bowman quietly waiting beside his phone box for the phone company technicians to complete there task, he became aware of an odd sparkliness in the air around him. Little sparks were shooting around in space, and quite distracting him from the rather poor rendition of 'Danny Boy' that somebody was attempting to play on a tin whistle. The whole thing struck Peter-Bowman as rather strange, until the Devil struck him with a handy length of curb and rendered him unable to adequately serve as the point of view for a number of sentences.

The Devil picked up Peter-Bowman's corpse gently. He threw away his sparklers and tin whistle as being no longer useful in the immediate situation. He looked somewhat wistfully at the whistle. One day he would learn to play Wagner on the thing and really impress people. This was a goal that the Devil held dear to his heart. It was a point of shame for him that he could never make a better entrance, but the deal with God held. None of the lawyers (it would be very easy to make a joke about the number of lawyers at the Devil's disposal, and so I will) the Devil had collected in Hell had been able to find a hole in the contract. The Devil had his tin whistle, God had the angelic choirs. The lawyer who had made it in to heaven (I believe he'd got through on an exceedingly technical point that God hadn't quite understood, there was a problem with the enforcement of the Commandments in certain legislatures during every thirty second leap year, or something) had made the thing water tight. This may go some way to explaining how he made it in to heaven in the first place.

It was with such ponderous concerns that the Devil took Peter-Bowman to Hell.