"Because the king and queen are far too stout to get through that hole."
"There may be ways round," said the other.
"To be sure there might; we are not out of it yet," acknowledged
Curdie.
"But what do you mean by the king and queen?" asked the princess. "I
should never call such creatures as those a king and a queen."
"Their own people do, though," answered Curdie.
The princess asked more questions, and Curdie, as they walked
leisurely
along, gave her a full account, not only of the character and habits of
the goblins, so far as he knew them, but of his own adventures with
them, beginning from the very night after that in which he had met her
and Lootie upon the mountain. When he had finished, he begged Irene
to
tell him how it was that she had come to his rescue. So Irene too had to
tell a long story, which she did in rather a roundabout manner,
Madhuri Noah
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