elow there in that stony ravine. Hu! from what a horrible
plunge I've saved you!'

"'Well, don't make any more faces,' said I, 'but take your money and
be off, though every word you say is false. It was the brook there, you
miserable thing, and not you, that saved me,' and at the same time I
dropped a piece of gold into his wizard cap, which he had taken from his
head while he was begging before me.

"I then trotted off and left him, but he screamed after me; and on a
sudden, with inconceivable quickness, he was close by my side. I started
my horse into a gallop. He galloped on with me, though it seemed with
great difficulty, and with a strange movement, half ludicrous and
half horrible, forcing at the same time every limb and feature into
distortion, he held up the gold piece and screamed at every leap,
'Counterfeit! false! false coin! counterfeit!' and such was the strange
sound that issued from his hollow breast, you would have supposed that
at every scream he must have tumbled upon the ground dead. All this
while his disgusting red tongue hung lolling from his mouth.

"I stopped bewildered, and asked, 'What do you mean by this screaming?
Take another piece of gold, take two, but leave me.'

"He then began again his hideous salutations of courtesy, and snarled
out as before, 'Not gold, it shall not be gold, my young gentleman. I
have too much of that trash already, as I will show you in no time.'

"At that moment, and thought itself could not have been more
instantaneous, I seemed to have acquired new powers of sight. I could
see through the solid green plain, as if it were green glass, and the
smooth surface of the earth were round as a globe, and within it I saw
crowds of goblins, who were pursuing their pastime and making themselves
merry with silver and gold. They were tumbling and rolling about, heads
up and heads down; they pelted one another in sport with the precious
metals, and with irritating malice blew gold-dust in one another's eyes.
My odious companion ordered the others to reach him up a vast quantity
of gold; this he showed to me with a laugh, and then flung it again
ringing and chinking down the measureless abyss.

"After this contemptuous disregard of gold, he held up the piece I had
given him, showing it to his brother goblins below, and they laughed
immoderately at a coin so worthless, and hissed me. At last, raising
their fingers all smutched with ore, they pointed them at me in scorn;
and