"Nor I, but perhaps we shall," returned Iona. "Let us go down those stairs. The birds know all about the woods and we would better obey them."
So they started down the dark flight of stairs which wound down, down, between the twisted roots of trees that had a very earthy smell.
At last they came out into a sort of room, a room with no shape at all, you might say, because there were so many passages leading off from it; but it was large enough for the little brown man who stood there looking with surprise to see visitors appearing from the stairway. He had a long white beard, but his face looked like a potato, Iona thought, his eyes were so small, and his color, clothes and all, so brown.
The place was lighted by glow worms that hung from the top of the room and there was a table that was an old tree root, and a chair of the same.
"Flatter him, flatter him," the woodpecker had advised, and Iona wondered how anyone could flatter such a droll being, as homely and earthy as he could be.
"Be sure to keep your cap on," whispered Pierre. "We should bump our heads dreadfully if we lost them, and never get out, either."
The little man did not look glad to see them.
"If you have come to get employment I don't need any more helpers," he said, "so you may as well go right back. This is going to be a very busy day with me. I felt thunder a minute ago."
"How can you feel thunder?" asked Pierre.
"You don't even know that?" said the little man, "and yet you thought you could work for me!"