ence, 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
the right spirit and the proper form before. You were just in the right
spirit this time, and when you called for your most pitiless enemy I was
that person by a very large majority, though you d