words.

'Hadn't we better be moving?'it said.

A rougher and deeper voice replied:

'There's no hurry. That wretched little mole won't be through tonight,
if he work ever so hard. He's not by any means at the thinnest place.'

'But you still think the lode does come through into our house?' said
the first voice.

'Yes, but a good bit farther on than he has got to yet. If he had
struck a stroke more to the side just here,' said the goblin, tapping
the very stone, as it seemed to Curdie, against which his head lay, 'he
would have been through; but he's a couple of yards past it now, and if
he follow the lode it will be a week before it leads him in. You see
it back there--a long way. Still, perhaps, in case of accident it
would be as well to be getting out of this. Helfer, you'll take the
great chest. That's your business, you know.'

'Yes, dad,' said a third voice. 'But you must help me to get it on my
back. It's awfully heavy, you know.'

'Well, it isn't just a bag of smoke, I admit. But you're as strong as
a mountain, Helfer.'

'You say so, dad. I think myself I'm all right. But I could carry ten
times as much if it wasn't for my feet.'

'That is your weak point, I confess, my boy.' 'Ain't it yours too,
father?'

'Well, to be honest, it's a goblin weakness. Why they come so soft, I
declare I haven't an idea.'

'Specially when your head's so hard, you know, father.'

'Yes my boy. The goblin's glory is his head. To think how the fellows
up above there have to put on helmets and things when they go fighting!
Ha! ha!'

'But why don't we wear shoes like them, father? I should like
it--especially when I've got a chest like that on my head.'

'Well, you see, it's not the fashion. The king never wears shoes.'

'The queen does.'

'Yes; but that's for distinction. The first queen, you see--I mean the
king's first wife--wore shoes, of course, because she came from
upstairs; and so, when she died, the next queen would not be inferior
to her as she called it, and would wear shoes too. It was all pride.
She is the hardest in forbidding them to the rest of the women.'

'I'm sure I wouldn't wear them--no, not for--that I wouldn't!' said the
first voice, which was evidently that of the mother of the family. 'I
can't think why either of them should.'

'Didn't I tell you the first was from upstairs?' said the other. 'That
was the only silly thing I ever knew His Majesty guilty of. Why should
he