"'Or perhaps beginning,' ventured the Lion contemplatively. 'You cannot see, Alderman Gold, because your eyes are filled with the colour of the thing you have made your God all through your life; it is the gold dust that has blinded you. The dazzling golden hoard you desired through life, watched, kept, gloated over. This love that tinged all your life and thoughts and feelings has poisoned you, has permeated with its fatal colour everything so that you cannot any longer see the beauty of the blue sky, the ripple of the moving waters, the tender bloom of blossoming flowers and trees. Remove the terrible gold-dust from your eyes that you have worshipped and you will see again, perhaps better than you have ever really seen before.'
"'Cease! cease!' broke in the Miser; 'you are only mocking my misery now, and even if what you say is true, it is too late now to help me.'
"'Not too late,' returned the Lion, more gently, I thought, than he had spoken hitherto; 'just in time, I think, just in time.' Then he called me. 'Skylark,' said the Lion, 'come here.'
"I came out from my hiding-place, still hugging the body of poor Sam close to me. The Miser peered at me curiously, though he couldn't see me very well, or what I was holding, judging from the expression of his face.
"'I suppose,' said the Miser, 'this is the ragged little wretch who is always hanging about here.'
"'He is very ragged now,' said the Lion patiently, 'but he will be very great one day.'
"The Miser laughed his harsh, unpleasant laugh, and peered down to see what I was carrying so carefully, then he put out his hand and touched Sam's coat.
"I pushed his hand away with my own dirty and grubby paw, but in a very determined way.
"'Don't yer touch 'im,' I cried.
"'It's a dog,' said the Miser, 'and it's dead; a dead dog isn't of much use to any one,' and he laughed again. I felt when he laughed that my blood was boiling.