"I promise," said Scrawler.

"Know then," said Kobboltozo, "that the ancestors of the
Huggermuggers--the Huggers on the male side, and the Muggers on the
female--were men smaller than me, the poor dwarf. Hundred of years ago
they came to this island, directed hither by an old woman, a sort of
witch, who told them that if they and their children, and their
children's children, ate constantly of a particular kind of
shell-fish, which was found in great abundance here, they would
continue to increase in size, with each successive generation, until
they became proportioned to all other growth on the island--till they
became giants--such giants as the Huggermuggers. But that the last
survivors of the race would meet with some great misfortune, if this
secret should ever he told to more than one person out of the
Huggermugger family. I have reasons for believing that Huggermugger
and his wife are the last of their race; for all their ancestors and
relations are dead, and they have no children, and are likely to have
none. _Now there are two persons who have been told the secret. It
was told to me, and I tell it to you_!"

As Kobboltozo ended, his face wore an almost fiendish expression of
savage triumph, as if he had now settled the giants' fate forever.

"But," said Scrawler, "how came _you_ into possession of this
tremendous secret; and, if true, why do you wish any harm to happen to
the good Huggermuggers?"

"I hate them!" said the dwarf. "They are rich--I am poor. They are big
and well-formed--I am little and crooked. Why should not my race grow
to be as shapely and as large as they; for _my_ ancestors were as