Avon Fantasy Reader No. 8 — page 107: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE GOBLINS WILL GET YOU 103 of earth life. Those,’ I pointed disdainfully with my cigarette at the stocks of books in their cases along the walls, “are a drop in a vast bucket.” They looked down at me disapprovingly. “No,” they said. “It is not in the rules.” I was happy until they told me why they were going to all the trouble of - acquainting themsélves with the psychology of earth-men. I blew up. “You fools!” I cried, screaming with laughter. “What could you do with the planet? Enslave it? The rich have done that already. Dissect a billion bodies? Go to our hospitals. They do it every day. Dig for diamonds? Shall I make you some?” [roared on: “Perhaps you are hungry for green cheese. Go to the moon. I guarantee it to be fresh and untouched by the hand of man.” | A dozen heedless fingers turned to page 242 of Oswald Spengler’s Decline of the West and twenty-four eyes began reading the top of page 243. “Come with me,” I urged, still rocking with mirth. “Let me take you into the homes of the people of the earth and show you life as they live it. You shall hear the screaming of women in labor, the ticking of the feet of roaches on the bare plaster of walls, the scrape of worn-out shoes on patched carpet, a thin gasp in darkness as love is fulfilled and the crest of the wave breaks on the rocks of poverty. Hover with me over the squares of this teeming metropolis and observe the scurrying lines. emerging from nowhere and vanishing in obscurity. Feel with me the texture of the skins of a hundred thousand women of the night, listen for the breath in their whispered words which should be happiness but in reality is sandpaper on scalded tongues. My friends, listen. It is madness to want us, insanity to imagine that you harbor the notion. Preserve your reason. Go home. Go home. Surely the earth is but a foot-stool to heaven, a mere step on your ladder of success. My friends. . . .” Calmly the busy fingers turned page 263. They were fast readers. 3 I shrugged my shoulders, winced at a sudden pain in the small of my back and put out the cigarette by crushing it against the bedspring cross-bar. I went to sleep. There was only one direction in which to move—forward. And up I went. First the swankier apartment, then still another and still another. Finally I bought a large residence on Riverside Drive and made it my castle. Theirs, too. The stacks of books grew to overwhelming proportions. They flowed out of the cases onto the floors everywhere. The basement was crammed, the attic door was locked. To have unlocked it would have started an ava- lanche. The only room in the house relatively free was the bathroom. I advanced socially, culturally, politically. The goblins were vaguely pleased at my rise in the world. Somewhat amusedly they watched my slow advance from businessman to alderman to mayor to state senator. Their mouths took on crinkles when I related my speeches and told of my great successes in beat- = comicbooks "co