"In pain!" cried Nod, as if in a great rage, "How shall a Prince sleep with twice ten thousand Gunga fleas in his blanket?"
He got up, dragging after him the thick Munzaram's fleece off his bed, and, opening the door, flung it out into the snow. "Try that, my hungry hopping ones," he said, and pushed up the door again. "Now I must have another one," he said.
The old Fish-catcher excused himself for the fleas. "It is cold to comb in the doorway," he said, rubbing his flat nose. And he took another woolly skin out of his earth-cupboard and laid it over Nod.
"That's one for Thumb," Nod said to himself, laughing. And presently once more he began fretting and tossing. "Oh, oh, oh!" he cried out, "What! More of ye! more of ye!" and with that away he went again, and flung the second ram's fleece after the first.
"Master Traveller, Master Traveller!" yelped the old Fish-catcher, starting up, "if you throw all my blankets out, those thieves the smudge-faces will steal them."
"Better no blankets than a million fleas," said Nod; "and yours, Master Fish-catcher, are as greedy as Ephelanto tics. And now I think I will sleep by the fire, then the first peep of day will shine in my eyes from that little window-hole up there, and wake me to my fishing."
"Udzmutchakiss" ("So be it"), growled the Gunga. But he was very angry underneath. "Wait ye, wait ye, wait ye, my pretty Squirrel-tail," he kept muttering to himself as he sat with crossed arms. "For every blanket a Bobberie or great fish."
But Nod had never felt so merry in his life. To think of his brothers wrapped warm in the Gunga-mulgar's blankets!—He laughed aloud.
"What ails the Traveller? What is he mocking at now?" said the Fish-catcher, glowering out of his corner.
"Why," said Nod, "I laughed to hear the mice in this box hanging over my head."