“The old miser saw me: he would not taste the gruel that night, although his nurse coaxed and scolded till they were both weary. She pretended to taste it herself, and to think it very good; but at last retired into a corner, and after making as if she were eating it, took good care to pour it all out into the ashes.”
“But she must either succeed, or starve him, at last,” interposed a Shadow.
“I will tell you.”
“And,” interposed a third, “he was not worth saving.”
“He might repent,” suggested another who was more benevolent.
“No chance of that,” returned the former. “Misers never do. The love of money has less in it to cure itself than any other wickedness into which wretched men can fall. What a mercy it is to be born a Shadow! Wickedness does not stick to us. What do we care for gold!—Rubbish!”
“Amen! Amen! Amen!” came from a hundred shadow-voices.
“You should have let her murder him, and so you would have been quit of him.”
“And besides, how was he to escape at last? He could never get rid of her, you know.”
“I was going to tell you,” resumed the narrator, “only you had so many shadow-remarks to make, that you would not let me.”