“Yessir!”
“Here’s a sovereign for you,”—and McNason handed that coin to his astonished retainer—“And just get someone to take this letter to Mr. Pitt’s house at once. It’s important.”
“Yessir! Certainly, sir! Thank-you, sir! A Merry Christmas to you, sir!”
“Thank-you! Same to you!”
Backing deferentially out of his master’s presence, Towler ran downstairs as fast as he could into the servants’ hall, there announcing that “Something’s happened to the Governor! He’s too pleasant to last!”
And McNason, still standing thoughtfully by his desk, repeated again in an undertone:
“It was a Dream! It must have been a Dream!”
“It WASN’T!” And a shrill falsetto voice rang clear on the silence. “Hoo-roo—oo—oo! Don’t you dare to call ME a Dream!”
And with a violent shock of renewed terror McNason saw, poised between him and the sunlight which poured through the windows, the Goblin, shrunk in size to the smallest quaintest creature possible, holding over its strangely shaped head a sprig of holly, exactly as a man holds an open umbrella.
“I’m going!” it said—“But don’t you be such a fool as to think yourself a Something and me a Nothing! You’ll make an awful mistake if you do!”