It was a bitter February night in 1791 when Mr. Alexander Hamilton uttered the ill-chosen words that would change his life forever.  Hamilton, on the night in question, had rushed home after a long day at his work as Secretary of the Treasury, and, having the good fortune to possess an attentive wife, was greeted with tea and scones upon his arrival.  His wife bade him remove his coat and sit down, and after he did so, questioned him as to the reason for the late hour of his return.

“I would have returned earlier,” began Hamilton through a mouthful of raspberry scone (for his upbringing in St. Croix had done nothing to impress upon him the manners of a gentleman), “but I’ve been kept by The Bank.”

“The Bank,” echoed his wife distantly, sensing the capital letters.

“Indeed,” he replied with a great sense of importance, and, over the course of the next hour, he proceeded to explain in detail his plans for a national bank that would unify the country and make it a financial force to be reckoned with.  “My efforts are being blocked, you see, by Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison,” he concluded as he finished the last of the tea, “and so I’ve been sitting in my office writing treatise after treatise in an effort to help them understand the gravity of the matter.”

“Perhaps you could compromise?” his wife offered delicately.

“Compromise!” he exclaimed, aghast at the thought.  “They’d ruin it all!  No, I must do the whole thing and do it alone.

“But if they refuse to let your plan pass—”

“Absolutely not,” he replied firmly, cutting her off.  “I would sooner sell my soul than compromise with those two.”

His wife immediately gave a little shriek of fright.  “Don’t say such things!  What if—” And here she peered nervously at the floor, as if she were afraid it would split in two beneath her very feet.

Hamilton, whatever his faults may have been (and they shall certainly be enumerated in the passages to come) was a smart man, and immediately realized the folly of what he had said.  But he was equally rash as intelligent, and thus refused to retract his words.  “I’ll be in the study.  Perhaps you’ll have come to your senses by the time I retire to bed,” he huffed crossly.  With these parting words he quit the room for his study, but upon entering it he found that it was already occupied.

The man in Hamilton’s study looked up when he entered, and his face broke into a gleaming smile full of perfect, sharp teeth.  He wore the finest of attire and had a pleasant sort of face that would have been very forgettable if not for its eyes, which were glowing red and had no pupils.  “Mr. Hamilton,” he greeted with a bland smile, his voice sending shivers up Hamilton’s spine.  “So good of you to join me.”

Hamilton gulped nervously, but he was nothing if not a man of courage, and so he responded.  “What do you want?”

“Well, Alexander—may I call you Alexander?—it’s more of a matter of what you want, is it not?”

Hamilton considered his dilemma.  On the one hand, even a child could have realized the sheer stupidity of making a deal with the man (for lack of a better word) before him.  But Hamilton’s caution was entirely ruined by his boundless ambition and determination to see his plans for a national bank come to fruition, and so he made a decision that was very dangerous indeed.  “I’ll make a deal with you,” he began cautiously, “but I want to write the terms.”

The man smiled, amused.  “You really think to negotiate with the likes of me, Alexander?”
Hamilton balked at the cloying familiarity that came with the use of his given name, but he stood his ground.  “When the price is as high as it is, yes.”

The man c***ed his head, considering.  Then he nodded once in acquiescence, and Hamilton set about drafting a contract.  He was a fine lawyer with much legal expertise, but his task took him the better part of the night, and the early signs of dawn shone through the lightening sky when he finally finished.  The contract, simply stated, provided that Hamilton would secure his national bank without the use of compromise.  Both parties finding the terms to their satisfaction, the contract was signed with Hamilton’s quill.  The man, having been satisfied with the course of events, bade Hamilton farewell and, with a parting handshake that made Hamilton feel as though his hand had been burned, vanished into the air before him, leaving Hamilton to wonder if the events of the night had simply been a dream…but for a steadily darkening burn on his hand.
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Hamilton soon came to realize that the events had in fact not been a dream.  Come February he successfully obtained a charter for his bank, and he was awash in triumph as he came home and greeted his wife with a jubilant kiss on the cheek. 

“Lots to do, I’m afraid, I’ll come down in a bit!” he laughed as he ran up to his study, mind filled with plans about what he would accomplish next.  He stopped short when he entered—the man had returned.

“Time to go,” the man grinned fiercely.

“I—no, no,” Hamilton drew back, eyes darting back and forth as if searching for an escape.

“Come now, Alexander!” the man shrieked in laughter, drunk on his success in winning the soul of another poor fool.  “We made a deal, did we not?”

“I want to see the contract,” whispered Hamilton.  “Let me see it.”

Smirking, the man conjured a copy out of thin air and thrust it towards Hamilton.  “It’s all there, I’m afraid,” he sighed mockingly.  “You’ve gotten your bank, so now I am due my payment.”

Hamilton’s eyes scoured the contract once, twice, thrice.  Then he stopped, looked up.  “You haven’t met your terms.”

“Beg pardon?” the man asked, stalking towards Hamilton with unmistakable fury.

Hamilton pointed a shaking finger at the contract.  “You said I would get the bank without compromise.  But I promised Jefferson and Madison that they would have the U.S. capital on the Potomac River instead of New York in exchange for the votes to pass my plan.”

The man looked at Hamilton, shaking with rage.  “You—you cheat!  You did that on purpose!  You knew you didn’t need to compromise!”

Hamilton began to grin, sensing a victory.  “You can hardly fault me if you haven’t followed a contract that you signed.  The deal is off, then.  I see no reason why any payment must be offered when I haven’t gotten what I was promised.”

The man was silent, looking over Hamilton with those calculating, red eyes.  Then: “Make no mistake, Mr. Hamilton.  I may have no claim to your payment, but I still have more power than you can ever imagine.  You will rue the day you attempted to thwart me.”  And he vanished, leaving Hamilton feeling more wrong-footed than ever before.
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Hamilton came to realize what the man had meant ten years later, and it was with great difficulty that he saw through his tears well enough to stumble into his study and cry, “I want a new deal!”  As soon as the words were spoken, the man appeared in his study for the third time, studying his nails with a casual disinterest that made Hamilton’s blood boil.

“You have taken everything from me,” Hamilton accused, voice hoarse from hours of sobbing.  “My name, my reputation—”

“I assume you’re referring to the Reynolds Affair,” the man finally looked up from his nails, lips curled in an amused smile.  “Tell me, was your little…dalliance, shall we say, with Maria Reynolds worth the political scandal?”

“You know,” Hamilton spat, shaking with barely suppressed rage, “you know that I wouldn’t have done it without your influence!”

“Do I?” the man resumed his examination of his nails. 

“Anyway, the Affair was several years ago.  If that is all—”

“My son!” Hamilton cried.  “You’ve taken my son, now!  Phillip!”
“If you’re referring to the Phillip Hamilton who was shot by George Eacker in a duel—”

“You know very well who I’m referring to, you—”

“Then perhaps he shouldn’t have been so careless.  You should be proud, though,” the man smirked.  “Did he not die defending his dear father’s name?”

Hamilton drew in a shaky breath.  “I want a new deal.  I’ll give you whatever payment you require, but please…give me my son back,” he implored.

The man sighed.  “Tempting as it is, I cannot bring back someone who has died.”

“But—”

“No buts, Mr. Hamilton,” the man grinned.  “You never should have crossed me.  What’s done is done.  I trust I won’t be called by you again.”  And the man vanished for the third and final time.

Hamilton sank to his knees, the man’s final words echoing in his head.  Who’s next?  The thought, which had sprung unbidden into his mind, paralyzed him with fear, for he did not know who the man would target next in his quest for revenge.  And even if he did know, he could not stop the man as long as he lived.
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And so, three years later when Aaron Burr had challenged Hamilton to a duel, Hamilton aimed his pistol at the sky instead of at his opponent.  The man would not bother anyone associated with Hamilton ever again.