“Well, who do you think?”
“I think you are Satan himself. I think you are the devil.”
“No.”
“No? Then who can you be?”
“Would you really like to know?”
“Indeed I would.”
“Well, I am your Conscience!”
In an instant I was in a blaze of joy and exultation. I sprang at the
creature, roaring:
“Curse you, I have wished a hundred million times that you were tangible,
and that I could get my hands on your throat once! Oh, but I will wreak
a deadly vengeance on–”
Folly! Lightning does not move more quickly than my Conscience did!
He darted aloft so suddenly that in the moment my fingers clutched the
empty air he was already perched on the top of the high bookcase, with
his thumb at his nose in token of derision. I flung the poker at him,
and missed. I fired the bootjack. In a blind rage I flew from place to
place, and snatched and hurled any missile that came handy; the storm of
books, inkstands, and chunks of coal gloomed the air and beat about the
manikin’s perch relentlessly, but all to no purpose; the nimble figure
dodged every shot; and not only that, but burst into a cackle of
sarcastic and triumphant laughter as I sat down exhausted. While I
puffed and gasped with fatigue and excitement, my Conscience talked to
this effect:
“My good slave, you are curiously witless–no, I mean characteristically
so. In truth, you are always consistent, always yourself, always an ass.
Other wise it must have occurred to you that if you attempted this murder
with a sad heart and a heavy conscience, I would droop under the
burdening in influence instantly. Fool, I should have weighed a ton, and
could not have budged from the floor; but instead, you are so cheerfully
anxious to kill me that your conscience is as light as a feather; hence I
am away up here out of your reach. I can almost respect a mere ordinary
sort of fool; but you pah!”
I would have given anything, then, to be heavyhearted, so that I could
get this person down from there and take his life, but I could no more be
heavy-hearted over such a desire than I could have sorrowed over its
accomplishment. So I could only look longingly up at my master, and rave
at the ill luck that denied me a heavy conscience the one only time that
I had ever wanted such a thing in my life. By and by I got to musing
over the hour’s strange adventure, and of course my human curiosity began
to work. I set myself to framing in my mind some questions for this
fiend to answer. Just then one of my boys entered, leaving the door open
behind him, and exclaimed:
“My! what has been going on here? The bookcase is all one riddle of–”
I sprang up in consternation, and shouted:
“Out of this! Hurry! jump! Fly! Shut the door! Quick, or my
Conscience will get away!”
The door slammed to, and I locked it. I glanced up and was grateful, to
the bottom of my heart, to see that my owner was still my prisoner. I
said:
“Hang you, I might have lost you! Children are the heedlessest
creatures. But look here, friend, the boy did not seem to notice you at
all; how is that?”
“For a very good reason. I am invisible to all but you.”
I made a mental note of that piece of information with a good deal of
satisfaction. I could kill this miscreant now, if I got a chance, and no
one would know it. But this very reflection made me so lighthearted that
my Conscience could hardly keep his seat, but was like to float aloft
toward the ceiling like a toy balloon. I said, presently:
“Come, my Conscience, let us be friendly. Let us fly a flag of truce for
a while. I am suffering to ask you some questions.”
“Very well. Begin.”
“Well, then, in the first place, why were you never visible to me
before?”
“Because you never asked to see me before; that is, you never asked in