_Goblin_. They would not like to realise that the world exists solely for the use of the Goblins. _Gnome_. You are joking, my friend, if you mean what you say. _Goblin_. Why? Of course I do. _Gnome_. Go along with you, buffoon! who does not know that the world is made for the Gnomes? _Goblin_. For the Gnomes, who live underground! That is one of the best jokes I have ever heard. What good are the sun, moon, air, sea, and country to the Gnomes? _Gnome_. And pray of what use to the Goblins are the mines of gold and silver, and the whole body of earth, except the outer skin? _Goblin_. Well, well: suppose we abandon the discussion. It is unimportant after all. For I imagine even the lizards and gnats think the whole world was created for their exclusive service. Let each of us believe what we please, for nothing will make us change our opinion. But, between ourselves, if I had not been born a Goblin, I should be in despair. _Gnome_. And I, had I not been born a Gnome. But I should like to know what men would say of their impertinence in former times, when, besides other misdeeds, they sank thousands of underground shafts, and stole our goods from us by force, asserting that they belonged to the human race. Nature, they said, concealed and buried the things down below, as a sort of game at hide and seek, just to see if they could discover and abstract them. _Goblin_. I do not wonder at that, since they not only imagined the things of the world were at their service, but they also regarded them as a mere trifle compared to the human race. They called their own vicissitudes "revolutions of the world;" and histories of their nations, "histories of the world;" although the earth contained about as many different species of animals as living individual human beings. Yet these animals, though made expressly for the use of men, were never conscious of the so-called revolutions of the world! _Gnome_. Then even the fleas and gnats were made for the service of men? _Goblin_. Just so. To exercise their patience, men said. _Gnome_. As if, apart from fleas, man's patience were not tried sufficiently! _Goblin_. And a certain man named Chrysippus termed pigs pieces of meat expressly prepared by nature for man's table. Their souls, he said, served the purpose of salt, in preserving them from decay. _Gnome_. In my opinion, if Chrysippus had had a little sense (salt) in his brain, instead of imagination (soul), he would never have conceived such an idea.