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The girl had something in her hand that I saw. I see more than most men. The thing she had made a sharp noise and spit a flame at him. He fell across the table and something red and warm went all over me. I began to be unhappy, for I thought I saw that there was something in the world that could not be bought. For him I cared nothing.

It was strange that after my transfers I was at last used to pay the judge who tried the girl. I was in the judge’s pocket when he sentenced her to death. He said: “May the Lord have mercy on your soul.” But I knew, for I told you I could see more than most men, that he didn’t believe in the Lord or in souls. He left the court to spend me at a —-, but I think that I will not mention that shameful change. There was nothing strange about my falling into the hangman as part of his pay. I had been in worse hands in the interim.

I saw her die. Not a word did she say about the man she killed, though it might have saved her to tell of the mock marriage and the other things I knew she could reveal. She thought it better to die, I suppose, than be shamed. So she died–unbought. It made me still more unhappy to think of it at all. The dark stain never left me, but I cared nothing for that. What troubled was that I knew she wanted me, was starving for what I could buy, but spurned me and died rather than take me. There was something that had more power than I possessed.

I made up my mind to forget, so my next effort was the greatest I had yet made–my partnership with millions of others. I traveled long distances over and over again. I dug gold from the earth and so produced others like myself. I built railroads, skyscrapers, steamships and great public works. I disguised myself, in order to enhance my power, under new forms of paper and metal, coin, drafts, checks, orders and notes. Indeed I scarcely knew myself when I returned to the bill with the red stain upon it. My partners were nearly all with us one day when the master came in with a man and pointed us out to him. The man shook his head. It was a great, massive head, good to look at. My master talked a long time with him but he never changed. Then he placed a great roll of us in his hand. He threw us down, kicked us, and went out without a look back. I was more unhappy than ever. He had spurned me, though I knew by his look that he wanted me. I felt cursed. I had not much power at all. There was another thing I could not buy.

But a curse came in good earnest two days later. The terror of that has never left me. I saw a man die who loved me better than his honor or his God. He refused, dying, to give me back to the man from whom he had stolen me. The priest who stood by his bed implored him. He refused and the priest turned from him without saying the words of absolution. When the chill came on him he hissed and spit at us, and croaked his curses, but the death rattle kept choking them back into him, only to have him vomit them into our faces again and again till he died. The priest came back and looked at him.

“Poor fool!” he said to him, but to me and my companions he said: “YOU sent him to Hell.”

Ah! What a power that was, but while I rejoiced in it I was not glad enough. He could have conquered had he only willed it. I knew he was my master long before I mastered him.