A scholar once made a deal with the Devil for, among other things, an “annus mirabilis.” He hadn’t read the contract very carefully and the Devil omitted an “n,” leaving him with a talking donkey. “It could be worse,” he noted, “I could have ended up shitting gold bricks for the rest of my life.”
Thus satisfied of the Devil’s good will, he set himself to payment, one soul to be damned. Knowing the Devil would claim an impure soul had gone to Hell on its own power, he set himself to corrupting the innocent in order to avoid damnation.
Yonatan Zunger’s Blog 