'
'That's all nonsense,' said Curdie. 'I don't know what you mean.'
'Then if you don't know what I mean, what right have you to call it
nonsense?' asked the princess, a little offended.
'I beg your pardon, Irene,' said Curdie; 'I did not mean to vex
you.'
'Of course not,' returned the princess. 'But why do you think we
shall be safe?'
'Because the king and queen are far too stout to get through that
hole.'
'There might be ways round,' said the princess.
'To be sure there might: we are not out of it yet,' acknowledged
Curdie.
'But what do you mean by the king and queen?' asked the princess.
'I should never call such creatures as those a king and a queen.'
'Their own people do, though,' answered Curdie.
The princess asked more questions, and Curdie, as they walked
leisurely along, gave her a full account, not only of the character
and habits of the goblins, so far as he knew them, but of his own
adventures with them, beginning from the very night after that in
which he had met her and Lootie upon the mountain. When he had
finished, he begged Irene to tell him how it was that she had come
to his rescue.
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