Well, when I got home, I did wish to goodness I
had that ten cents back again! You never did let me get through a
charity sermon without having something to sweat about."
"Oh, and I never shall, I never shall. You can always depend on me."
"I think so. Many and many's the restless night I've wanted to take you
by the neck. If I could only get hold of you now!"
"Yes, no doubt. But I am not an ass; I am only the saddle of an ass.
But go on, go on. You entertain me more than I like to confess."
"I am glad of that. (You will not mind my lying a little, to keep in
practice.) Look here; not to be too personal, I think you are about the
shabbiest and most contemptible little shriveled-up reptile that can be
imagined. I am grateful enough that you are invisible to other people,
for I should die with shame to be seen with such a mildewed monkey of a
conscience as you are. Now if you were five or six feet high, and--"
"Oh, come! who is to blame?"
"I don't know."
"Why, you are; nobody else."
"Confound you, I wasn't consulted about your personal appearance."
"I don't care, you had a good deal to do with it, nevertheless. When you
were eight or nine years old, I was seven feet high, and as pretty as a
picture."
"I wish you had died young! So you have grown the wrong way, have you?"
"Some of us grow one way and some the other.
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