“Yes,” the goblin nodded.
“Well, I tell you I can’t stand it.”
“But you must; it was your choice.”
“Choice!” angrily. “I didn’t know What it would be like.”
“You shouldn’t have chosen so rashly. Come on.”
Bob demurred and pleaded, and whimpered a little, it must be confessed; but his guide was inexorable.
It is not necessary to enter into details in regard to all the boy saw, experienced and learned. Let it suffice to say that at three o’clock that afternoon he was completely worn out with strenuous sight-seeing. The grating, rumbling, thundering sounds had made his head ache; the sights and smells had made his heart sick. He had seen goblins, goblins, goblins—goblins sooty and grimed, goblins wizened and old before their time; goblins grinding out their lives in the cutlery factory; goblins inhaling poisonous fumes in the chemical works; goblins, like beasts of burden, staggering under heavy loads; goblins doing this thing, that thing and the other thing, that played havoc with their health and shortened their lives. And he was disgusted—nauseated with it all!
“Oh, Fitz!” he groaned. “I can’t go another step; I can’t stand it to see any more! I thought it would be pleasant; but—oh, dear!”
“Sit down here and rest a minute,” Fitz Mee said, not unkindly, indicating a rough bench against the wall of the corridor. “Now, why can’t you bear to see any more?”
“Oh, it’s so awful!” the boy moaned. “I can’t bear to see ’em toiling and suffering, to see ’em so dirty and wretched.”