They placed themselves in a circle about the sleeping child.
“Now then,” said the smallest of the dwarfs from the heights of his plumed charger; “now then, did I deceive you when I said that the loveliest of princesses was lying asleep on the borders of the lake, and do you not thank me for bringing you here?”
“We thank you, Bob,” replied one of the dwarfs who looked like an elderly poet, “indeed there is nothing lovelier in the world than this young damsel. She is more rosy than the dawn which rises on the mountains, and the gold we forge is not so bright as the gold of her tresses.”
“Very good, Pic, nothing can be truer,” cried the dwarfs, “but what shall we do with this lovely little lady?”
Pic, who looked like a very elderly poet, did not reply to this question, probably because he knew no better than they what to do with this pretty lady.
“Let us build a large cage and put her in,” a dwarf by the name of Rug suggested.
Against this another dwarf called Dig vehemently protested. It was Dig’s opinion that only wild beasts were ever put into cages, and there was nothing yet to prove that the pretty lady was one of these.
But Rug clung to his idea for the reason possibly that he had no other. He defended it with much subtlety. Said he:
“If this person is not savage she will certainly become so as a result of the cage, which will be therefore not only useful but indispensable.”
This reasoning displeased the dwarfs, and one of them named Tad denounced it with much indignation. He was such a good dwarf. He proposed to take the beautiful child back to her kindred who must be great nobles.