, 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. You had a large conscience
once; if you've a small conscience now I reckon there are reasons for it.
However, both of us are to blame, you and I. You see, you used to be
conscientious about a great many things; morbidly so, I may say. It was
a great many years ago. You probably do not remember it now. Well,
I took a great interest in my work, and I so enjoyed the anguish which
certain pet sins of yours afflicted you with that I kept pelting at you
until I rather overdid the matter. You began to rebel. Of course I
began to lose ground, then, and shrivel a little--diminish in stature,
get moldy, and grow deformed. The more I weakened, the more stubbornly
you fastened on to those particular sins; till at last the places on my
person that represent those vices became as callous as shark-skin. Take
smoking, for instance. I played that card a little too long, and I lost.
When people plead with you at this late day to quit that vice, that old
callous place seems to enlarge and cover me all over like a shirt of
mail. It exerts a mysterious, smothering effect; and presently I, your
faithful hater, your devoted Conscience, go sound asleep! Sound? It is
no name for it. I couldn't hear it thunder at such a time. You have
some few other vices--perhap