The interview was terrible!

All the domestics fled and hid themselves in distant dells.

At last the dwarf, exhausted by vituperation, sank upon the flagstones of
the court-yard. Then folded the giant his arms and sang his song:

"Oh! hear me now, misguided dwarf,
Eight thousand pound more I must ask.
Materials, and labor too,
All rose since I began my task.

Among the things we can't divine.
Are values of such terms as 'so;'
But I've all items entered straight,
Where all the money goes you'll know."

The dwarf gave one quick savage glance at the pocket of the giant, S.T.
MATE, and then, without a word, he proudly crossed the drawbridge.

But he had not long left the castle at his back ere dejection crept upon
him and never left him more.

The dwarf he did his cellar reach, fainting, almost bereft of speech; and
as his men he staggered by, with panting breast and haggard eye,

"Minstrel!" he cried, "O laggard! I for deepest depths of Lethe long. Get
thy guitar and sing a song!"