“I’ll skin your soul!” repeated the Goblin, severely--“And you won’t like the process. Do you know what the process is called, McNason? No? Then I’ll tell you! It’s a blistering, flaying, scorching, boiling, steaming, tearing, crunching, blasting, stripping--(don’t groan like that, McNason!)--stabbing, cutting, piercing process called Truth! It will rip off all the lies in which you are so comfortably wadded, as lightning rips off the bark from a tree! And it will show you to be exactly what I say--a Humbug! A pious Fraud, McNason! A rich man who does no good with his money! A hard man who grinds down poor lives into ill-gotten gold! A cruel, avaricious, grasping, selfish man! And yet you go to Church every Sunday and pretend that you’re a Christian! Oh, hoo-roo! Uncharitable, mean, narrow-minded and hypocritical, you are anything but a good man, McNason!--and I’ve come to tell you so!” Gathering up his courage under this volley of abuse McNason turned round in his chair and deliberately faced his accuser. “You’re a Bad Dream!” he said slowly--“You’re the result of Cold and Indigestion! You’re--you’re Nothing! But if you were Anything, I should tell you you are an impudent scoundrel and liar! I should tell you to get out of this room before you are kicked out! But you are only an Illusion!--a horrible, horrible Fancy!--and--and you’ll Go!--presently!--in a little while--when I am better--when my brain recovers itself----” Here he broke off, appalled at the indescribably hideous grimace with which his unpleasant companion favoured him. “Your brain!” echoed the Goblin. “_Your_ brain indeed! Pooh! When you are better! Hoo-roo! You never will be better--never--not unless _I_ doctor you! I must sk--k----” “No, no!” cried Josiah, seized by a paroxysm of fear--“Don’t skin me! Anything but that! Don’t,”--and his teeth clattered together--“don’t ski--i--in me!” “Professor” Goblin relaxed its writhing features and smoothed them into a kind of wise impassibility such as is seen on the physiognomy of a Chinese idol. “Now answer me, McNason,” it said, impressively--“Do you mean to say that you consider yourself a good man?” Josiah looked at his inquisitor with one eye askew. “As good as any man,”--he muttered--“And better than most!” “Oh, hoo-roo!” and the dismal cry was like a hundred owls hooting in chorus--“Hoo-roo!--hoo-roo! How these conceited mortals deceive themselves!” Here it patted its paunch echoingly. “As good as any man, are you, McNason?--and better than most! Now what have you done in order to get such a very excellent opinion of yourself, eh?” McNason hesitated. Then the recollection of his vast wealth, and of his wide-reaching business influence flashed across his mind and filled him with a sudden spirit of self-assertiveness. “I’ve done a good deal in my time,”--he said, boldly--“For one thing, I’ve made my own way in the world!”