Azazel makes a man gifted at basketball.

This story was written for Azazel to make a better beginning for the series than "Getting Even,” the original first story. ("Getting Even” was actually the first Griswold story, too. When the editor of Gallery objected to having a demon haunt his magazine every month, the Griswold stories veered off and became brain-teasers—sort of Black Widowers lite—and eventually got collected as The Union Club Mysteries. "Getting Even,” however, involving a little demon and no cloak-and-dagger stuff, had to be left out because it didn’t fit the series any more. It has yet to be collected.)

In some respects this is a rather disappointing beginning to the series. My staunch lack of enthusiasm for basketball is certainly a factor in this evaluation, but so too is Asimov’s patent (and frankly unbelievable) greed which ends the first story—he’s willing to let George, our narrator, sponge off of him because George is a source for stories. I'd prefer he had simply left his friendship for George a mystery of the universe and get on with Azazel’s adventures without imputing such mercenary motives to himself.

Found In

	Azazel