“Why do you laugh, and so spitefully? Don’t frighten me. I am like a little child now. I can be frightened to death by one smile like that. Listen. I’ll let no one see you, no one. So it must be. He exists, but no one has seen him; he is in hiding. And do you know, one might show you, to one out of a hundred-thousand, for instance. And the rumour will spread over all the land, ‘We’ve seen him, we’ve seen him.’

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