“Just like we did,” shouted all the Ink-Bottle Babies together.
“I was going along humming a little tune, when I saw a fierce little dwarf,” continued the princess.
“Oh, oh, oh,” cried the Babies, “we met him, too! We met him, too!”
“The dwarf talked in rhyme,” said the princess. Then all the Babies nodded their heads.
The princess said, “The dwarf would not let me have any flowers unless I gave him a cookie, and when I did give him a cookie, he said,
“‘Pick all the flowers you like to-day,
But after sundown do not stay!’”
Then the Ink-Bottle Babies set up a shout, for those were the very words the little dwarf had said to them.
The princess said, “I was so happy gathering flowers that I forgot what the little dwarf said, and after sundown I began to sink, down and down, until I came to this magic tower.”