"Naggeneen," he
cried, "come back and tell us something better nor all this. It's not
pleasant you are in your talk, and it's often you make me angry with
you, but after all you're cleverer than any of us. Tell us what to do.
It was not like this where we lived before. There we could do all
manner of things that mortals could not, and they were afraid of us."
"And so here too," said Naggeneen, "you can do all manner of things
that mortals cannot, but they can do as many that you cannot--as many
and better."
"But what are we to do," the King went on, "to show them that we're
their masters? Sure we're cleverer than them all out, and we can prove
it in some way."
"King," said Naggeneen, speaking as boldly as if he were himself a
greater king, "you can never prove that you're cleverer than men, for
you're not cleverer. It was a poor, wasted, weak, and sorrowful
country that we came from, and it's a rich, new, strong, and happy
country that we've come to. There's the differ. Clever you are, maybe,
and your people, too, and I may be clever in my own way, and we may
play our little tricks on mortals, as I did on the Sullivans, if
they're as stupid as them.
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