“Very considerably.” Here McNason drew himself up stiffly with an air of importance—“I’m a Churchwarden.”
At this “Professor” Goblin uttered a frightful yell.
“Hoo-roo, hoo-roo, HOO-ROO!” it cried, “The dear old days! The sweet familiar word!” And springing suddenly into the air, it turned a rapid somersault and came gravely squatting down again—“Oh, Beelzebub, McNason! I was once a Churchwarden!”
Josiah trembled in every limb, and his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth in sheer panic. The alarming abruptness of his unwelcome visitor’s movements almost paralysed him with terror. Somehow he had thought the Creature might be a kind of fixture to the arm of his chair,—an hallucination of his eye and brain which was likely perhaps to stay in one position,—but its eldritch screech and somersault upset his logic altogether and turned him sick and dizzy.
“I was once a Churchwarden!” said the Goblin, beginning to emit a spluttering laugh from a grimacing mouth—“Oh, hoo-roo! And I looked so respectable! Tell me, McNason!—do you wear a top-hat on Sundays?”
The shuddering millionaire bent his head feebly in assent.
“So did I! So did I!” And the Goblin clasped its toes and hugged itself in a kind of ecstasy—“And a black frock-coat! So nicely brushed! So well-fitting! I had a figure in those days, McNason! And I walked into Church with brightly polished boots, creaking just a little to show they weren’t paid for—because it isn’t ‘gentlemanly’ to pay for what you wear right down on the nail, you know!—and I bent my back before all the people and breathed good little prayers into the crown of my top-hat, just where I could see the name of the hatter printed in gold on the silk lining! I did! Oh, they were happy days! Happy humbug days! Gone, gone, gone! I shall never be a Churchwarden any more!”
Here, unravelling its contorted body, it put its clawlike hands up to its face and began to weep.
“Oh, hoo-roo!” it blubbered—“When I was a Churchwarden people were all so respectful to me! I had a country seat—such as you have, McNason!—and a whole parish bowed down to me! Think of that! Farmers doffed their caps, and farmers’ wives curtsied to me! The clergyman spoke of me as his ‘high-minded and generous neighbour!’ Oh, hoo-roo! I was so proud of myself!—as proud as a Scotch landlord!—and nothing’s prouder than that! Hoo-roo! Hoo-roo! Those happy humbug days! I gave myself such airs!—such touch-me-not airs, McNason! I might have been an up-to-date Highland chief in a kilt, my airs were so superior! You know what an up-to-date Highland chief is, McNason?—a man who lets his ‘dear native home,’ and his ‘beloved’ moors and forests for all he can get, and lives a gay life in London on the profits! A proud and pompous creature, McNason!—and I was just such a one! I was really! Talk of patriotism and love of country! I had it all!—I was as parochial as a town clerk! I had such a grand manner!—so stand-offish! And now—and now——” Here it beat a dreary tattoo on its expressive Paunch—“Oh, hoo-roo!—I shall never be a Churchwarden any more!”
A clammy perspiration bedewed Josiah’s brow. That hollow drumming sound was dreadful!—if the horrible Creature would only stop it!——