‘Just sign your name, will you?’
The Princess signed her name, but she could not help seeing that the writing was very bad and the spelling was awful.
‘Why didn’t they send some one who could write better? Why! that “r” is more like a “k” than an “r”.’
But the giant shook his head mournfully.
‘They hadn’t got any one else in the army who could write except Merrymineral, and he was afraid to come.’
‘But weren’t you afraid to come?’ she said.
The giant shook his mace round so violently that it grazed the helmet of the dwarf, and cut his crest of roses off.
‘Whom am I to be afraid of?’ he growled. ‘I could kill your whole army single-handed’; and he laughed loud and long.
But just at this moment the Owl, that had been sitting on the floor behind the Princess’s chair, flew up on to her shoulder, and no sooner did the giant see the Owl than he jumped up from the floor, where you remember he was sitting, and he was in such a hurry that he knocked a hole in the plaster of the ceiling with his head.