“Certainly! I often use telephones! Capital things! They have to do with the currents of the air, you know!--and other folks work on currents of the air besides Humans! Humans aren’t the only people in the universe! Don’t look so scared, McNason!--I won’t hurt you! As I remarked before, when I rang you up just now, I wondered what title I should take to ingratiate myself with you. You like titles, I know!--you’ve been thinking of a Peerage for yourself--quite right too! Get all you can, McNason!--get all you can that money will buy! But as I never deal in Honours now, I couldn’t pass myself off as a Duke or an Earl. The man that sells these things is more in your line than mine. And I gave up brewing beer and running ‘party’ newspapers long ago, so I could hardly be a Lord. Besides Lords are getting so common--frightfully common, McNason! In fact Lords are becoming Commons! Oh, Beelzebub! Excuse the joke! And as for being a ‘Sir’--oh, hoo-roo, hoo-roo!” And the Goblin, untwisting itself, beat its large paunch slowly in the fashion of a drum, evoking a dreary hollow sound which almost made McNason cry--“Only a provincial Mayor would accept it nowadays! I half thought I’d say I was a Colonel or a General,--but then you’d have taken me for an American,--and I wouldn’t be an American Bounder for twenty Next-Worlds! Then I decided I would be ‘Professor.’ ‘Professor’ struck me as being quite the proper thing;--nice-sounding, wise and imposing!--and anyone can call himself a Professor--even a palmist who robs poor silly dupes of money for telling their fortunes which neither he nor anybody knows! Hoo-roo! Hoo-roo! What humbugs there are in the world, McNason! _You_ know that! You’re one!” “I’m not!” said Josiah, indignantly, aroused to sudden defiance. “How dare you say I am!” “How dare I!--How dare I!” crooned the Goblin, clasping its legs again and rocking itself to and fro--“Oh, Beelzebub! How high and mighty we are! I dare do anything, McNason! Anything! I’ll skin your soul!” Josiah gave a smothered cry of terror. Such eyes as were now bent upon him were like nothing in the world except railway signal lamps with the light in them very much intensified and enlarged.