(By Stan Kegel and Alan Combs)

Inspired by a setup by Stan Kegel, and wanting to use my wrong answer to one of his pun riddles, I present the following.

Everyone has troubles. No matter how high, or how low, nothing ever goes smoothly. It is thus also with the affairs of that fallen angel, Satan. On one particularly bad day, he accidently had his tail cut off. The press of business prevented him from immediately retrieving the appendage, and by the time he got back, it had disappeared.

This was an intolerable situation, but difficult to rectify. After much investigation, Satan found that after their deaths, all of the creatures that had their tails removed ended up in the same location in the afterlife. Cocker spaniels, other bob-tailed dogs, sheep, and creatures that accidently lost their tails, all went there.

According to legend, all these creatures would be united with their missing parts to be whole again for eternity. This turned out to be wrong. Only after a long search did it become clear to all the incomplete creatures, including Satan, that the tails were gone forever.

Because of his long absence, it became quite common to say that the Devil is in the details.