'You have not half got to the bottom of
the answers I have already given you. That paw in your hand now
might almost teach you the whole science of natural history - the
heavenly sort, I mean.'
'I will think,' said Curdie. 'But oh! please! one word more: may
I tell my father and mother all about it?'
'Certainly - though perhaps now it may be their turn to find it a
little difficult to believe that things went just as you must tell
them.'
'They shall see that I believe it all this time,' said Curdie.
'Tell them that tomorrow morning you must set out for the court -
not like a great man, but just as poor as you are. They had better
not speak about it. Tell them also that it will be a long time
before they hear of you again, but they must not lose heart. And
tell your father to lay that stone I gave him at night in a safe
place - not because of the greatness of its price, although it is
such an emerald as no prince has in his crown, but because it will
be a news-bearer between you and him. As often as he gets at all
anxious about you, he must take it and lay it in the fire, and
leave it there when he goes to bed. In the morning he must find it
in the ashes, and if it be as green as ever, then all goes well
with you; if it have lost colour, things go ill with you; but if it
be very pale indeed, then you are in great danger, and he must come
to me.
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