The other elves began to gather around the unfortunate soldier, with menacing looks and muttered threats of vengeance, but he protested that he told the truth. “The door is there, for I have seen it opened,” he said. “Something must be wrong.”
Wamby thereupon drew forth the pin, and after one glance at it, said to Harry, “Why, you gave me a common pin!”
“Won’t it do?” asked Harry; “what difference does it make?”
“A great deal,” answered Wamby; “only a door-pin, made for the purpose, will open doors. Why need I ask for your pin, if any common one will do? And how do you suppose it would be possible to keep any Pin Elf in prison, when each one’s clothes are fastened on with dozens of common pins?”
“Sure enough,” replied Harry; “I never thought of that.”
He searched one lapel of his coat, and then the other, and then looked at Wamby with a blank countenance, and said, “The door-pin is gone!”
“Gone!” cried Wamby, as a look of despair settled on his face; “then we are lost!”
He was silent a moment. Then he smote his little hands wildly together, and cried, “It’s the work of some of those mean, ugly, thievish, tricky Gnomes! They must have taken the pin when you left your coat in the boat.” He suddenly felt in his belt, and said to Harry in a hoarse whisper, “They have stolen the hat-pin also!”
CHAPTER VI.
THE TABLES TURNED.
“Look here, Wamby,” said Harry, “don’t get excited. Let’s talk over the matter. There must be some way for us to get out.”