nd 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 did not suspect it."

"Well, did that remark of mine turn you into flesh and blood?"

"No. It only made me visible to you. I am unsubstantial, just as other
spirits are."

This remark prodded me with a sharp misgiving.

If he was unsubstantial, how was I going to kill him? But I dissembled,
and said persuasively:

"Conscience, it isn't sociable of you to keep at such a distance. Come
down and take another smoke."

This was answered with a look that was full of derision, and with this
observation added:

"Come where you can get at me and kill me? The invitation is declined
with thanks."

"All right," said I to myself; "so it seems a spirit can be killed,
after all; there will be one spirit lacking in this world, presently, or
I lose my guess." Then I said aloud:

"Friend--"

"There; wait a bit. I am not your friend. I am your enemy; I am not your
equal, I am your master, Call me 'my lord,' if yo