ight; and as soon as we've got away from this thin place
I'm going there to hear what night they fix upon. I should like to see
that young ruffian there on the other side, struggling in the agonies
of--'

He dropped his voice so low that Curdie could hear only a growl. The
growl went on in the low bass for a good while, as inarticulate as if
the goblin's tongue had been a sausage; and it was not until his wife
spoke again that it rose to its former pitch.

'But what shall we do when you are at the palace?' she asked.

'I will see you safe in the new house I've been digging for you for the
last two months. Podge, you mind the table and chairs. I commit them
to your care. The table has seven legs--each chair three. I shall
require them all at your hands.'

After this arose a confused conversation about the various household
goods and their transport; and Curdie heard nothing more that was of
any importance.

He now knew at least one of the reasons for the constant sound of the
goblin hammers and pickaxes at night. They were making new houses for
themselves, to which they might retreat when the miners should threaten
to break into their dwellings. But he had learned two things of far
greater importance. The first was, that some grievous calamity was
preparing, and almost ready to fall upon the heads of the miners; the
second was--the one weak point of a goblin's body; he had not known
that their feet were so tender as he had now reason to suspect. He had
heard it said that they had no toes: he had never had opportunity of
inspecting them closely enough, in the dusk in which they always
appeared, to satisfy himself whether it was a correct report. Indeed,
he had not been able even to satisfy himself as to whether they had no
fingers, although that also was commonly said to be the fact. One of
the miners, indeed, who had had more schooling than the rest, was wont
to argue that such must have been the primordial condition of humanity,
and that education and handicraft had developed both toes and
fingers--with which proposition Curdie had once heard his father
sarcastically agree, alleging in support of it the probability that
babies' gloves were a traditional remnant of the old state of things;
while the stockings of all ages, no regard being paid in them to the
toes, pointed in the same direction. But what was of importance was
the fact concerning the softness of the goblin feet, which he foresaw
might be us