John Masefield

“ Up away north, in the old days, in Chester, there was a man who never throve. Nothing he put his hand to ever prospered, and as his state worsened, his friends fell away, and he grew desperate. So one night when he was alone in his room, thinking of the rent due in two or three days and the money he couldn't scrape together, he cried out, "I wish I could sell my soul to the devil like that man the old books tell about." ”

“ But the chain gave such a Yank when it came-to, that the big link carried away, and oh, roll and go, out it went through the hawsehole, in a shower of bright sparks, carrying the devil with it. There is no devil now. The devil's dead.
As for the old man, he looked over the bows watching the bubbles burst, but the devil never rose. Then he went to the fo'c's'le scuttle and banged thereon with a hand-spike. ”

“ On deck there! Lower away ya halliards!"
"I will not," said the old man, "nary a lower."
"Come up your sheets, then," cries the devil. "This main-topsail's stiff up-and-down. How'm I to take in three reefs when the sail's stiff up-and-down?"
"Why," said the old man, you can't do it. Come out o' that! Down from aloft, you hoof-footed son. That's one to me."
"Yes," says the devil, when he got on deck again, "I don't deny it, Cap'n. That's one to you."
"Now, Mr. Devil," said the old man, going towards the rail, "suppose you was to step into that little boat alongside there. ”