At this juncture McNason suddenly sat up in bed. “Yes, I have!” he said, with a kind of trembling eagerness--“I’ve got something else! I’ve got YOU! And I want--I want to make a friend of YOU!” The Goblin opened its round eyes so wide that they threatened to fall out. “Oh, you do, do you?” it queried doubtfully--“That’s odd! Now what put that into your head?” “I don’t know--I don’t know!” stammered McNason agitatedly--“But I think----I feel----you don’t really want to do me any harm! Look here!--Get me out of this! Take me away--take me away--take me home!” The Goblin took off its conical cap and examined the interior of that head gear with critical gravity. Its hair, in the all-round style, seemed blacker and stickier than ever, and its features worked into the most alarming contortions. “Take you home!” it echoed--“What! Before Nurse Drat-Em-All comes back?” “Yes--yes!” and Josiah wrung his hands imploringly; “Take me away at once----!” “But you’re ill!” said the Goblin--“You’re very ill!” “I’m not!” “You ARE! You’ve got a cancer!” “I haven’t!” “You HAVE! It’s called Selfishness! It is eating your life away,--poisoning your blood--rotting your Soul!” “I’ll get rid of it!--I’ll--I’ll cut it out myself!”--and in his excitement McNason caught hold of the Goblin’s claw and pressed it fervently--“I will--I will! Only take me out of this! Give me a chance!” “You’re feverish too!” continued the Goblin, severely. “Your temperature has gone up to the very highest point of Fraudulent Philanthropy!” “I know--I know!--but it will be all right!--only let me get home, and you shall see--you shall see----!” Here his voice ebbed away into a kind of choked sob. “And I’m not sure that you haven’t got eczema,”--pursued the Goblin--“Your snobbish hankering after a Peerage will probably break out in a rash all over you!” “It won’t!” said McNason--“It shan’t! I’ll--I’ll do whatever you tell me----!” “Oh, will you really though!” And the Goblin sniffed the air with its terribly plastic nose very dubiously--“Do you mean it? Or is it all funk? And only because you want to get away from Sir Slasher Cut-Em-Up? I don’t believe in death-bed repentances!” “It’s not--it’s not a death-bed repentance!” wailed McNason--“I don’t want this to be my death-bed! I want to die in my own home!” “Ah! So does Willie Dove!” said the Goblin. “Perhaps you can understand now why his wife doesn’t want to send him to a Hospital!” McNason shuddered. Time was flying fast, he thought--that cruel-looking Nurse Drat-Em-All would be coming back immediately!--and with an imploring cry he held out his arms to the Goblin. “Ah, be good to me!” he moaned--“Take me home! I’ll promise anything--anything!” “It’s easy to promise,”--said the Goblin, “Anyone can do that! But will you keep your promises? For instance, will you think of some other few things besides YOURSELF?” McNason lifted his trembling hands in the fashion of one invoking the gods. “I will!--I will!”