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The Goblins 83
" Nonsense! There are no wild beasts in our country," said his father.
" But it was, father. I felt it."
" Nonsense, I say. Will you malign your native realms and reduce them to a level with the country upstairs? That is swarming with wild beasts of every description."
"But I did feel it, father."
"I tell you to hold your tongue. You are no patriot."
Curdie suppressed his laughter, and lay still as a mouse—but no stiller, for every moment he kept nibbling away with his fingers at the edges of the hole. He was slowly making it bigger, for here the rock had been very much shattered with the blasting.
There seemed to be a good many in the family, to judge from the mass of confused talk which now and then came through the hole; but when all were speaking together, and just as if they had bottle-brushes—each at least one—in their throats, it was not easy to make out much that was said. At length he heard once more what the father-goblin was saying.
" Now then," he said, "get your bundles on |
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