“And what? I suppose you’ll admit that he believed in them?”
“Well, I suppose so,” said Dick, grudgingly; “but I——”
“But you imagine yourself to be cleverer than Shakespeare.”
“Ha—ha—ha!” laughed a chorus of little people, derisively.
“Look here! I’ll tell you what it is,” said the first speaker, “you have evidently been taught by some of those wise old know-nothings, who have succeeded in making you as clever as themselves, and it is our intention to show you how ignorant you all are. I think you will believe in fairies before we have done with you. Now, we are gnomes, and have just completed a subterranean passage between here and the land of the little Panjandrum.”
"Four extraordinary figures came in sight."
The word little was spoken so softly as to be quite indistinct. “The what!” cried Dick.
“Sh! the little Panjandrum,” said the gnome, speaking the word almost inaudibly.