Sin

Though Tom's morals are certainly not in the right place at the beginning of the story, they continue to decay as time goes on, until eventually Tom has become so immoral that he is akin to the devil himself. At first, Tom is reluctant to agree to Old Scratch's terms, even though money is involved. Slowly but surely, though, Old Scratch chips away at his morality until it has decayed completely, and he can look a poor man in the face, whom he has bled out of money, and claim he has not made a cent off of him.