“There was once, there was a man,” said Pomp, delighted narrator of horrors, “there was a man so afraid for dying, he make a deal with Death himself. A true story.”

“A true story,” said Slant in teasing tones.

“True. I knowed this man.”

“Then wh —, wh —, what was his name?”

“See, it don’t matter. He make a deal with Death. James Wippleson. Of Nansemond County. He calls Death to him out in the forest and he says, ‘I don’t want ever die. What I got to do not to die?’

“And Death, he says, ‘Aye, Mr. Wippleson, you don’t want die? I make a fine deal, sir. You don’t kill nothing — not one single thing — and so long as you don’t make work for me, so long as you don’t deal death, you don’t die.’

“This James Wippleson, he thinks this a fine deal sure, so he shake Death’s hand, all bony and crunchy. He shake it. And Death laughed, and he gone in a trice.

“This James Wippleson, he standing there at the edge of the forest. And the sun coming up. And James Wippleson, he standing there and he see all the living things — the birds and the trees and all the plants — and he’s joyful he alive.

“So he starts off for home. And he ain’t taken one step before he sees: grass under his foot, and the bugs in the grass. And the crickets and the spittle-bugs. And all those tiny little things. And he can’t step on none of them. So he stops walking. And then he realize, he can’t eat. Can’t kill no plant or no animal.

“And he look around again, and his life is over every second. The fly land on his arm, the mosquito-bug. And he can’t hit it. And no way he can walk out of that field. So he stand. And he stand.

“All he got — all James Wippleson got for his . . . See, his immortalness, it’s a terrible thing. Because immortalness ain’t nothing but an endless carefulness. A man can’t live his life forever. James Wippleson, he still standing there, thin as a rake, seeing as he can’t starve, still standing there, not moving. And people go by and watch him, but he don’t say nothing to them or budge none. Because if he move like he alive — he dead.”

Thus the sermon and the text as we await word.