“Brother ‘Firebrand’ was quite right, you see!” it remarked--“Soon, very soon, you will be one of US! WE are your ‘next world,’ you know! And riches don’t count in our United Empire Club--but you’ll be happy, McNason! Oh yes--you’ll be so happy! Because you will have reaped the just reward of your labours, and you will be exactly what you have made of YOURSELF! Nothing could be more satisfactory! Listen! Willie Dove is talking about you now!” And so he was. Willie Dove was speaking in the kindest and gentlest way possible of the man who had refused to help him in his need. “Well, I hope Mr. McNason will live many years yet,” he said--“and that he will learn how to enjoy and get the best out of the large fortune he has made. The amount of good he could do if he liked is simply incalculable--and if he would only use some of his money just for the sole purpose of benefiting others, and would not merely put it out like a magnet to draw more money in again, he would be the happiest man alive. For instance, if instead of subscribing large sums to charities which are presided over by ‘committees’ who use up half the money for their own expenses, he would go himself among the poor and personally relieve them at first hand,--if he would try to help those who are, with great difficulty, trying to help themselves,--those who cannot borrow and will not beg,--if he would just put himself out a bit----” “Ah, that’s just what he won’t do!” interposed Pitt--“He can’t see anything or anybody but Himself--that’s the pity of it!” “Poor soul!” said Mrs. Dove, gently--“We mustn’t forget that he lost his only son,--a dear little boy!--and that may have embittered him. All _our_ children have been mercifully spared to us, thank God!--but even if one had been taken, I’m sure we should always have been thinking of that one! And his ‘one’ was his all! We must remember that! And however hard he is upon _us_, we mustn’t be hard upon _him_! That wouldn’t be keeping Christmas rightly!” At this Josiah turned and flung himself desperately against the Goblin’s paunch. “Take me away!” he muttered, finding his speech with an effort--“Take me out of this! I--I don’t want to stop here! I want to get away--QUICK!”