“Oh!” said she. “How could I? I can’t say. I’m—”
“Just as I thought,” said the dwarf. “And you won’t help me cure my people. What is it you came here to seek?”
“We are seeking the best thing in the world,” said I.
“And what is that?”
“I don’t know; but we’ll certainly recognize it when we find it.”
“Not you,” said the dwarf; “not until my mirror shows you fair and comely; then you’ll know it.”
“How are we to get it to show us fair and comely?” said I.
“One of you by saving a miserable outcast, and the other by saving a whole people; then you’ll be fair and comely, inside and out, but not until then.”
“You talk in riddles, master Buffo,” said I. “Let us go to the King.”
“Madman!” said the dwarf, and gave the mirror back to the monkey, who scampered off with it and disappeared.