But hearing his nurse
coming, he slammed the lid down, and I recovered.
"I tried very hard, but I could not do him any good. For although I
made all sorts of shapes on the walls and ceiling, representing evil
deeds that he had done, of which there were plenty to choose from, I
could make no shapes on his brain or conscience. He had no eyes for
anything but gold. And it so happened that his nurse had neither eyes
nor heart for anything else either.
"'One day, as she was seated beside his bed, but where he could not see
her, stirring some gruel in a basin, to cool it from him, I saw her
take a little phial from her bosom, and I knew by the expression of her
face both what it was and what she was going to do with it. Fortunately
the cork was a little hard to get out, and this gave me one moment to
think.
"The room was so crowded with all sorts of things, that although there
were no curtains on the four-post bed to hide from the miser the sight
of his precious treasures, there was yet but one small part of the
ceiling suitable for casting myself upon in the shape I wished to
assume. And this spot was hard to reach. But having discovered that
upon this very place lay a dull gleam of firelight thrown from a
strange old dusty mirror that stood away in some corner, I got in front
of the fire, spied where the mirror was, threw myself upon it, and
bounded from its face upon the oval pool of dim light on the ceiling,
assuming, as I passed, the shape of an old stooping hag, who poured
something from a phial into a basin.
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