“Please make yourselves at home here for a few minutes, while I attend to an errand,” said the Nome King, getting up from the throne. “I shall return pretty soon, when I hope to find you pieceful – ha, ha, ha! – that’s a joke you can’t appreciate now but will later. Be pieceful – that’s the idea. Ho, ho, ho! How funny.” Then he waddled from the cavern, closing the door behind him.”
