“I came upon it lying on the ground a little way from here. I tumbled over some wild beasts who were playing with it. Look, Your Majesty.” And Curdie showed him how he was scratched and bitten.
The king was pleased to find him behave more politely than he had expected from what his people had told him concerning the miners, for he attributed it to the power of his own presence; but he did not therefore feel friendly to the intruder.
“You will oblige me by walking out of my dominions at once,” he said, well knowing what a mockery lay in the words.
“With pleasure, if Your Majesty will give me a guide,” said Curdie.
“I will give you a thousand,” said the king with a scoffing air of magnificent liberality.
“One will be quite sufficient,” said Curdie.
But the king uttered a strange shout, half halloo, half roar, and in rushed goblins till the cave was swarming. He said something to the first of them which Curdie could not hear, and it was passed from one to another till in a moment the farthest in the crowd had evidently heard and understood it. They began to gather about him in a way he did not relish, and he retreated towards the wall. They pressed upon him.
“Stand back,” said Curdie, grasping his pickaxe tighter by his knee.
They only grinned and pressed closer. Curdie bethought himself and began to rhyme.
“Ten, twenty, thirty— You’re all so very dirty! Twenty, thirty, forty— You’re all so thick and snorty! “Thirty, forty, fifty— You’re all so puff-and-snifty! Forty, fifty, sixty— Beast and man so mixty!