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 spot on the ceiling
suitable for casting myself upon in the shape I wished to assume. And
this spot was hard to reach. But I discovered that upon this very spot
there was a square gleam of firelight thrown from a strange old dusty
mirror that stood away in some corner, so I got in front of the fire,
spied where the mirror was, threw myself upon it, and bounded from its
face upon the square pool of dim light on the ceiling, assuming, as I
passed, the shape of an old stooping hag, pouring something from a phial
into a basin.
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