RBN: B96 B98 BTG XI A Piquant Trait of the Peculiar Psyche of Contemporary Man A piquant trait, p. 97]

“The most ‘important’ beings will decree to all the other beings that in all their appointed establishments, such as what are called ‘churches,’ ‘chapels,’ ‘synagogues,’ ‘town-halls,’ and so on, special officials on special occasions with appointed ceremonies wish for you in thought something like the following:

“That you should lose your horns, or that your hair should turn prematurely grey, or that the food in your stomach should be turned into coffin nails, or that your future wife’s tongue should be three times its size, or that whenever you take a bite of your pet pie it should be turned into ‘soap,’ and so on and so forth in the same strain.

“Do you now understand to what dangers you exposed yourself when you called these remote three-brained freaks ‘slugs’?”

Having finished thus, Beelzebub looked with a smile on his favorite.