ight or nine years old, I was seven feet high, and as pretty as a
picture."

"I wish you had died young! So you have grown the wrong way, have you?"

"Some of us grow one way and some the other. You had a large conscience
once; if you've a small conscience now I reckon there are reasons for
it. However, both of us are to blame, you and I. You see, you used to be
conscientious about a great many things; morbidly so, I may say. It was
a great many years ago. You probably do not remember it now. Well, I
took a great interest in my work, and I so enjoyed the anguish which
certain pet sins of yours afflicted you with that I kept pelting at you
until I rather overdid the matter. You began to rebel. Of course I began
to lose ground, then, and shrivel a little--diminish in stature, get
moldy, and grow deformed. The more I weakened, the more stubbornly you
fastened on to those particular sins; till at last the places on my
person that represent those vices became as callous as shark-skin. Take
smoking, for instance. I played that card a little too long, and I lost.
When people plead with you at this late day to quit that vice, that old
callous place seems to enlarge and cover me all over like a shirt of
mail. It exerts a mysterious, smothering effect; and presently I, your
faithful hater, your devoted Conscience, go sound asleep! Sound? It is
no name for it. I couldn't hear it thunder at such a time. You have some
few other vices--perhaps eighty, or maybe ninety--that affect me in much
the same way."

"This is flattering; you must be asleep a good part of your time."

"Yes, of late years. I should be asleep all the time but for the help I
get."

"Who helps you?"

"Other consciences. Whenever a person whose conscience I am acquainted
with tries to plead with you about the vices you are callous to, I get
my friend to give his client a pang concerning some villainy of his
own, and that shuts off his meddling and starts him off to hunt personal
consolation. My field of usefulness is about trimmed down to tramps,
budding authoresses, and that line of goods now; but don't you
worry--I'll harry you on theirs while they last! Just you put your trust
in me."

"I think I can. But if you had only been good enough to mention
these facts some thirty years ago, I should have turned my particular
attention to sin, and I think that by this time I should not only have
had you pretty permanently asleep on the entire list of human vices, b