baskets. He pounced eagerly upon their contents, then pulled a wry face and fell to dancing again.
“This is no good! If you'd go hence
Fork out a peck of common-sense!”
“All right, good sir,” said the maker of shadows. “Guide us to within sight of the bottom of the shaft and you shall be paid in full.” The dwarf hesitated, though he still kept up dance and chant.
“Nothing venture, nothing win!
Oh! what a plight these two are in?
Then he became more serious, saying—
“Agreed, agreed!
Follow my lead.”
The dwarf went on so rapidly that the maker of ghosts and his friend had much ado to keep him in sight. However, after a long time of doubling and twisting, they gained the bottom of the shaft, although they could not have told it in the dark had not their hands grasped the ladders.
Directly they had paid their strange guide disappeared, and the two friends had to wait until morning, when their fellow-miners descended with their lamps, before they could see their way to regain the surface of the earth. But when they showed their dearly bought ore to an experience dealer, he said it was too common to be worth anything!
Well, the two friends felt very mortified, but it was no use to be discouraged. They laid out some common-sense in a good plan of the mines, and then hurried off to the mouth of the shaft again. By this time the morning was well advanced, and they made all the haste they could in descending the ladders.
They got as far as the twenty-fifth, when the maker of ghosts, who was leading, missed his footing and fell plump down the rest of the way. His friend, who, in his haste, followed too close behind him, slipped also and shared the same fate, so that both lay sprawling on the ground, badly bruised and shaken.
Their heavy fall dislodged some of the ore in the side of the shaft, and they managed to fill one of their baskets with it; but, on trying to stand, they found that they were so badly hurt that they had to shout for help.
