When the Poor Brother came in, they picked him up at once, and put him over one of the hottest fires, and began to turn him round and round like the rest; and of course the Chief Man came up to him and said, "Eh, how do you feel now? How do you feel now?" But the Poor Brother did not say, "Let me out! Let me out!" He said, "Pretty well, thank you."
The Chief Man grunted and said to the other men, "Make the fire hotter." But the next time he asked the Poor Brother how he felt, the Poor Brother smiled and said, "Much better now, thank you." The Chief Man did not like this at all, because, of course, the whole object in life of the people Below was to make their victims uncomfortable. So he piled on more fuel and made the fire hotter still. But every time he asked the Poor Brother how he felt, the Poor Brother would say, "Very much better"; and at last he said, " Perfectly com- fortable, thank you; couldn't be better."
You see when the Poor Brother was on earth he had never once had money enough to buy coal enough to keep him warm; so he liked the heat.
At last the Chief Man could stand it no longer.
"Oh, look here," he said, "you can go home."
"Oh no, thank you," said the Poor Brother, "I like it here."
"You must go home," said the Chief Man.
"But I won't go home," said the Poor Brother.
The Chief Man went away and talked with the other men; but no matter what they did they could not make the Poor Brother uncomfortable; so at last the Chief Man came back and said,—
"What'll you take to go home?"