*
“I’m sure this makes twenty times,” Pin Pot chattered on, “twenty times nothing is nothing. No sign, no trace. How long does she have to wait? By the sounds of him he’s too spineless to come back anyway.”
“Now Pin Pot, I’m sure that’s not fair. You know who his father was and he was a man who let nothing stand in his way. Although I do even wonder myself how often we can keep coming here given the danger about now. Too many years of decay gets under your fur and it doesn’t do anyone any good.”
“That’s right, just look at my trunk! No fur at all! Oh I’ll be stripped back to naked soon, ooh I’ll have to have pins stuck in me just to look like hair! Ah, back to being a pin cushion when I had come so far!” he lamented.
“Pin Pot, you never had fur. You’re made of felt,” Petsy pointed out. “And I thought you made a very good pin cushion in the old days,” he added.
“Huh!” snorted Pin Pot and rounded the bend towards the gateway.
“See nothing times twenty.”
“Wait a minute Pin Pot,” said Petsy, bending over to examine the ground. In the dust were footprints. Pin Pot leapt down for a closer look. “Four feet! We’ve struck the jackpot!” he hooted and circled about with his trunk in the air.
“Four feet. That is curious.”
“Curious, shmurious, let’s go get ‘em! This place gives me the spinnies!” said Pin Pot, trotting after the footprints. “They’re not going to like the chamber when they find it.”
“No,” agreed Petsy. “But let’s hope they’re still there.”