“Well, there is rather a change in the atmosphere. So some show to disadvantage. But this comparison always pleases me, because the comparer gains no pleasure from it, but only bitterness. Many a time I have interfered and have thrown a kind of halo round you, making you more a god than mortal, so that the bitterness may be more complete.”
“Do you derive pleasure from this cruelty?”
“Yes. I always derive pleasure from cruelty, as you know. The more so in this case because the writer had laughed at me.”
“But—” I began, but he continued,—
“If people laugh at me I laugh at them when the time comes. If they hold me up to ridicule, I hold them up to ridicule when the time comes. If they speak untruthfully of me I speak untruthfully of them when the time comes.”
“Really,” I interposed, yawning, “I never knew before you were so sensitive.”
He laughed. “If I were not so sensitive,” he rejoined, “I should be less powerful. To make others feel one must feel oneself. Moreover, to be mixed up with one’s own slaves and menials, to be depicted as a kind of Jack-in-the-box, and described as turning from dark brown to pale brown, not to speak of other things, rather surprised me.”
“Come, come, Plucritus,” I said irritably, “where’s the use of all this acting? One might think something had bitten you and put you out of temper. Surely you are having enough revenge. What more do you want?”
“Nothing,” he replied moodily. Then after a pause he looked up.
“Genius,” he said, “do you miss your ring?”