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236 And Edred said, "We want Dickie, please."

Then the Mouldiestwarp said, and it was to Edred that he said it— "Dickie is in the hands of those who will keep him from you for many a day unless you yourself go, alone, and rescue him. It will be difficult, and it will be dangerous. Will you go?"

"Me? Alone?" said Edred rather blankly. "Not Elfrida?"

"Dickie can only be ransomed at a great price, and it must be paid by you. It will cost you more to do it than it would cost Elfrida, because she is braver than you are."

Here was a nice thing for a boy to have said to him, and before all these people too! To ask a chap to do a noble deed and in the same breath to tell him he is a coward!

Edred flushed crimson, and a shudder ran through the company.

"Don't turn that horrible colour," whispered a white toreador who was close to him. This is the white world. No crimson allowed."

Elfrida caught Edred's hand.

"Edred is quite as brave as me," she said. "He'll go. Won't you?"

"Of course I will," said Edred impatiently.

"Then ascend the steps of the throne," said the Mouldiestwarp, very kindly now, and sit here by my side." Edred obeyed, and the Mouldiestwarp leaned towards him and spoke in his ear.

So that neither Elfrida nor any of the great