Alias Nick Beal1949

Rev. Thomas Garfield:
You've changed, Joseph.

Joseph Foster:
How?

Rev. Thomas Garfield:
Well, your clothes, for one thing.

Joseph Foster:
Oh, well, what are clothes?

Rev. Thomas Garfield:
And there are rumors about you and Miss Allen. I know I shouldn't mention them, or the story that you and Martha are estranged. Is it true?

Joseph Foster:
Well, in a way... What's my personal trouble got to do with it?

Rev. Thomas Garfield:
They're all indications of change. Then there's the influence that this Nick Beal seems to have over you.

Joseph Foster:
Influence, nothing. He loaned me some money and I'll pay it back, and that's all.

Rev. Thomas Garfield:
I wonder. Have you signed anything with him, any sort of contract?

Joseph Foster:
Of course not. What are you driving at?

Rev. Thomas Garfield:
I don't know exactly, but there's something strange about him, something eerie.

Joseph Foster:
It's a pose to impress people.

Rev. Thomas Garfield:
How did he get out of your house the night we were there? Why was he afraid to read the Bible?

Joseph Foster:
Are you serious?

Rev. Thomas Garfield:
I know I can't be, but I am. And there's another thing - somewhere I've seen a portrait of him, a medieval drawing or woodcut. I'm trying to remember where.

Joseph Foster:
A drawing as what?

Rev. Thomas Garfield:
Lucifer.

Joseph Foster:
We're in the 20th century, Tom. Nobody's believed in such things since the Salem witch burnings. Besides, aren't there a few items missing? Where's the tail and the horns? Where's the smell of sulfur and brimstone? And where's the contract you're talking about, signed in blood and promising the delivery of one slightly used soul?

Rev. Thomas Garfield:
Maybe the devil knows it's the 20th century too, Joseph.