glass case for a keepsake? No, sir. I would give you to a yellow dog!
That is where you ought to be–you and all your tribe. You are not fit
to be in society, in my opinion. Now another question. Do you know a
good many consciences in this section?”
“Plenty of them.”
“I would give anything to see some of them! Could you bring them here?
And would they be visible to me?”
“Certainly not.”
“I suppose I ought to have known that without asking. But no matter, you
can describe them. Tell me about my neighbor Thompson’s conscience,
please.”
“Very well. I know him intimately; have known him many years. I knew
him when he was eleven feet high and of a faultless figure. But he is
very pasty and tough and misshapen now, and hardly ever interests himself
about anything. As to his present size–well, he sleeps in a cigar-box.”
“Likely enough. There are few smaller, meaner men in this region than
Hugh Thompson. Do you know Robinson’s conscience?”
“Yes. He is a shade under four and a half feet high; used to be a blond;
is a brunette now, but still shapely and comely.”
“Well, Robinson is a good fellow. Do you know Tom Smith’s conscience?”
“I have known him from childhood. He was thirteen inches high, and
rather sluggish, when he was two years old–as nearly all of us are at
that age. He is thirty-seven feet high now, and the stateliest figure in
America. His legs are still racked with growing-pains, but he has a good
time, nevertheless. Never sleeps. He is the most active and energetic
member of the New England Conscience Club; is president of it. Night and
day you can find him pegging away at Smith, panting with his labor,
sleeves rolled up, countenance all alive with enjoyment. He has got his
victim splendidly dragooned now. He can make poor Smith imagine that the
most innocent little thing he does is an odious sin; and then he sets to
work and almost tortures the soul out of him about it.”
“Smith is the noblest man in all this section, and the purest; and yet is
always breaking his heart because he cannot be good! Only a conscience
could find pleasure in heaping agony upon a spirit like that. Do you
know my aunt Mary’s conscience?”
“I have seen her at a distance, but am not acquainted with her. She
lives in the open air altogether, because no door is large enough to
admit her.”
“I can believe that. Let me see. Do you know the conscience of that
publisher who once stole some sketches of mine for a ‘series’ of his, and
then left me to pay the law expenses I had to incur in order to choke him
off?”
“Yes. He has a wide fame. He was exhibited, a month ago, with some
other antiquities, for the benefit of a recent Member of the Cabinet’s
conscience that was starving in exile. Tickets and fares were high, but
I traveled for nothing by pretending to be the conscience of an editor,
and got in for half-price by representing myself to be the conscience of
a clergyman. However, the publisher’s conscience, which was to have been
the main feature of the entertainment, was a failure–as an exhibition.
He was there, but what of that? The management had provided a microscope
with a magnifying power of only thirty thousand diameters, and so nobody
got to see him, after all. There was great and general dissatisfaction,
of course, but–”
Just here there was an eager footstep on the stair; I opened the door,
and my aunt Mary burst into the room. It was a joyful meeting and a
cheery bombardment of questions and answers concerning family matters
ensued. By and by my aunt said:
“But I am going to abuse you a little now. You promised me, the day I
saw you last, that you would look after the needs of the poor family
around the corner as faithfully as I had done it myself. Well, I found
out by accident that you failed of your promise. Was that right?”
In simple truth, I never had thought of that family a second time! And