The dwarf laughed.
‘That’s your answer, is it?’ he said. ‘I thought so. I say, Gog, have you written it down?’
But Gog had gone to sleep. So the dwarf pricked him with the end of his lance.
‘I say, Gog,’ he said, ‘she’s given her answer and you haven’t written it down, and I’ve forgotten it already. Just say it over again, Queen, will you? and not too fast, or Gog here will never get it down.’
The giant now drew from his pocket a very soiled and crumpled half-sheet of a copy-book and began to write from the Princess’s dictation.
‘Of course I should not do anything so——’ Here he stopped.
‘How do you spell “ridiculous”?’ he said.
‘With two “k’s,” of course,’ said the dwarf; ‘even I know that, though I can’t write.’
When he had finished he handed it to the Princess: