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23 - Baron Trump's Marvellous Underground Journey - Ingersoll Lockwood · Science Fiction Books

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  Speaker 1: Chapter twenty three, Lord Hothead again, and this time a
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  Speaker 1: fuller account of him, his wondrous tales concerning the Coltiquerps,
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  Speaker 1: where they came from, who they were, and how they
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  Speaker 1: managed to live in this world of eternal frost, the
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  Speaker 1: many questions I put to him, and his answers in full.
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  Speaker 1: Lord Bulibrain was never allowed to set foot inside the
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  Speaker 1: Palace of Ice. King Gelidas, backed by the opinion of
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  Speaker 1: his favorites, still indulge the belief that he would be
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  Speaker 1: able in the inn to refrigerate him. True, he had
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  Speaker 1: been many years at the task, so that it had
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  Speaker 1: now become a sort of hobby of his. And almost
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  Speaker 1: daily did his frigid majesty pay a visit to his
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  Speaker 1: hot headed subject and test his temperature by pressing his
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  Speaker 1: small boll of ice against his temples. To King Galidas's mind,
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  Speaker 1: a man of so high a temperature was a continual
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  Speaker 1: menace to the peace and quiet of his kingdom. What
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  Speaker 1: if Lord Hothead, in a dream should wander forth some
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  Speaker 1: night and fall asleep with his back against one of
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  Speaker 1: the walls of the Ice Palace, might he not melt
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  Speaker 1: away enough of it to throw the whole glorious fabric
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  Speaker 1: into a slump and slush of debris. It was terrible
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  Speaker 1: to think of when he did think of it, and
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  Speaker 1: he thought of it quite often. But Bulabrain held no
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  Speaker 1: terrors for me, nor for Bulgar either. In fact, Bulgar
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  Speaker 1: was delighted to be stroked by a warm hand, and
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  Speaker 1: he and Bulabrain and Eye soon became the very best
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  Speaker 1: of friends. But his frigid majesty was so alarmed when
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  Speaker 1: he heard of this friendship that he was seized with
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  Speaker 1: quite a spasm of warmth. For thought he the united
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  Speaker 1: heat of three hot heads might work some terrible harm
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  Speaker 1: to the welfare of his people. So he issued the
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  Speaker 1: coldest kind of decree, carved on a tablet of ice,
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  Speaker 1: that Bulibrain and I should, on no one day pass
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  Speaker 1: more than a half hour together. That we should never
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  Speaker 1: touch palm to palm, sleep in the same room, eat
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  Speaker 1: from the same dish, or sit on the same divan.
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  Speaker 1: These regulations were annoying, but I followed them to the letter.
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  Speaker 1: And when King Gelidoe I saw how careful I was
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  Speaker 1: to yield the strictest obedience to his decree, he conceived
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  Speaker 1: a genuine affection for me and sent several magnificent pelts
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  Speaker 1: to the ice house, which had been assigned to Bulgar
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  Speaker 1: and me, For of course, it would not have been
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  Speaker 1: safe for us to lodge in the palace itself. But
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  Speaker 1: his frigid Majesty held out the flattering prospect that the
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  Speaker 1: very moment Bulgar and I should become properly refrigerated, apartments
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  Speaker 1: in the palace would be assigned to us, and in fact,
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  Speaker 1: that I should be permitted to eat at the royal table.
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  Speaker 1: Who are the Colti Corps? Where did these strange folk
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  Speaker 1: come from? How did they ever find their way down
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  Speaker 1: into this world of eternal frost? And above all, where
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  Speaker 1: did they get their food and clothing from? These were
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  Speaker 1: a few of the questions which I was so impatient
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  Speaker 1: to have answered. That my temperature was raised a whole degree,
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  Speaker 1: and I was obliged to sleep with only one single
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  Speaker 1: pelt between me and my divan of crystal ice. For
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  Speaker 1: a man bred and born in so cold a country
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  Speaker 1: as the land of the Colti Corps, but the brain
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  Speaker 1: had an extremely quick active mind. On account of his
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  Speaker 1: rapid heartbeat and the consequent high temperature of his body,
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  Speaker 1: he was not able to do his writing on slabs
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  Speaker 1: of ice, as other learned Culti corpse had done, for
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  Speaker 1: it would not have been a pleasant thing for him
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  Speaker 1: to see a poem which he had just finished literally
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  Speaker 1: melt away in his hands without so much as leaving
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  Speaker 1: an ink stain behind. So he had been obliged, with
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  Speaker 1: King Galadas's permission, to do his writing on thin tablets
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  Speaker 1: of alabaster. Before he began to talk to me about
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  Speaker 1: the progenitors of the Colti corpse, he showed me a
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  Speaker 1: map of the country in the Upper World once inhabited
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  Speaker 1: by them, and traced for me the course they had
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  Speaker 1: sailed upon abandoning that country, and described the beautiful shores
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  Speaker 1: they had landed upon in their search for a new home.
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  Speaker 1: I saw at a glance that it was green Land
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  Speaker 1: which Boulibrain was thus unconsciously describing, and knowing as I did,
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  Speaker 1: that in past ages Greenland had been a land of
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  Speaker 1: blue skies, warm winds, green meadows, and fertile vas alleys,
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  Speaker 1: before moving mountains of ice came down from the north
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  Speaker 1: and crushed all life out of it. I listened with
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  Speaker 1: breathless interest to his wonderful tales of its beautiful lakes
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  Speaker 1: nestled at the foot of vine clad mountains, all of
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  Speaker 1: which Bulabrain now looked upon in fair visions inherited from
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  Speaker 1: his ancestors. And I also knew that it must have
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  Speaker 1: been the Arctic Ocean which had been traversed by the
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  Speaker 1: ships of the Coultiqorps, who had then landed upon thee
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  Speaker 1: in those days sunny shores of northern Russia. But the
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  Speaker 1: mountains of ice could sail too, and they followed the
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  Speaker 1: fleeing Colti Corps like mighty monsters, dashing themselves with terrible
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  Speaker 1: roar and crash upon the peaceful shores, which they soon
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  Speaker 1: transformed into a wilderness of burgh, of glacier and of floe.
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  Speaker 1: Only a handful of the Colti Corps survived, and these,
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  Speaker 1: in their dumb despair, taking refuge in the clefts and
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  Speaker 1: caverns of the North Urals, could, from their hiding places
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  Speaker 1: look upon one of the strangest sights that had ever
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  Speaker 1: greeted human eyes. So rapid had been the advance of
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  Speaker 1: these mighty masses of ice, crashing against the mountain sides
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  Speaker 1: and rending the very rocks in their fury, that the
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  Speaker 1: air gave up its warmth, and the sun was powerless
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  Speaker 1: to give it back again. The animals of the wild
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  Speaker 1: wood and the beasts of the field, overtaken in their flight,
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  Speaker 1: perished as they ran and stood there, stark and stiff,
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  Speaker 1: with heads up, tossed and mussels knotted. Then, by the
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  Speaker 1: thousands and ten times thousands, the crushed crystals of the
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  Speaker 1: pursuing floods caught up like moss and leaves in a
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  Speaker 1: mountain torrent, and packed in every cave and cavern on
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  Speaker 1: the way, tearing broader and loftier portals into these subterranean
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  Speaker 1: chambers so that they might do their work the better.
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  Speaker 1: And these, then, o Bleibrain, are your meat quarries, I exclaimed,
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  Speaker 1: whence ye dry your daily food? Even so, little Barren,
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  Speaker 1: replied the hot headed Coltiquorp. And not only our food,
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  Speaker 1: but the skins which serve us so admirably for clothing
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  Speaker 1: in this cold underground world, and the oil too, which
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  Speaker 1: burns in our beautiful alabaster lamps, besides a hundred other things,
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  Speaker 1: such as bone for hues and handles, horn for needles
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  Speaker 1: and buttons and eating utensils, wool for the weaving of
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  Speaker 1: our under garments, and magnificent pelts of bear and seal
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  Speaker 1: and walrus, which laid upon our benches, and divans of
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  Speaker 1: crystal ice transform them into beds and couches which even
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  Speaker 1: an inhabitant of thy world might envy. But o Bulibrain
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  Speaker 1: I cried out, have ye not almost exhausted? These supplies
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  Speaker 1: will not death from starvation? Soon? Stare ye all in
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  Speaker 1: the face in these deep and icy caverns of the underworld,
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  Speaker 1: visited by the sun's light, yet unwarmed by it. Nay,
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  Speaker 1: little Barren, answered Bulebraine, with a smile almost as warm
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  Speaker 1: as one of my own. Let not that thought give
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  Speaker 1: thee a moment's alarm, for we have as yet barely
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  Speaker 1: raised the lid of this ice box of nature's packing.
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  Speaker 1: We are not large eaters anyway, continued Lord hotthead For
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  Speaker 1: while it is true that we are not indolent people,
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  Speaker 1: for His frigid Majesty's palace and our dwellings need constant repair,
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  Speaker 1: and new hatchets and axes must be chipp'd out in
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  Speaker 1: the flint quarries, and new lamps carved, and new garments woven,
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  Speaker 1: Yet is also true that we take life rather easy.
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  Speaker 1: We have no enemies to slay, no quarrels to settle
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  Speaker 1: no gold to fight over, no land to drive our
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  Speaker 1: fellow creatures from, and fence in. Nor can we be
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  Speaker 1: ill if we were willing to be, for in this pure, cold,
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  Speaker 1: crisp air, disease would try in vain to sow her
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  Speaker 1: poisoned germs, Hence needing no doctors, we have none, as
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  Speaker 1: we have no lawyers either or merchants to sell us
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  Speaker 1: what belongs to us already. His frigid majesty is an
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  Speaker 1: excellent king. I never read of a better one. I
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  Speaker 1: doubt that his like exists in the upper world. Always
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  Speaker 1: cool headed, all thought of conquest, no dreams of power,
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  Speaker 1: no long means for empty pomp and show ever enter
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  Speaker 1: his mind. Since the day his father died and we
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  Speaker 1: set the great Colti corp crown of crystal ice upon
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  Speaker 1: his cool brow, his temperature has never risen but half
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  Speaker 1: a degree, and that was only for a brief hour
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  Speaker 1: or so, and was occasioned by a mad proposal of
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  Speaker 1: one of his counselors, who claimed that he had discovered
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  Speaker 1: an explosive compound, something like the gunpowder of thy world.
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  Speaker 1: I fancy by which he could shatter the glorious window
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  Speaker 1: of rock crystal set in the mountain dome of our underworld,
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  Speaker 1: and let in the warm sunshine. Did his frigid majesty
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  Speaker 1: Gelidus put this daring colti corp to death? I asked, oh, dear, No,
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  Speaker 1: replied Belibraine. He merely ordered him to be refrigerated for
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  Speaker 1: so many hours a day, until all his feverish projects
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  Speaker 1: had been chilled to death. For no doubt, little Baron,
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  Speaker 1: a man of thy deep learning, knows full well that
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  Speaker 1: all the ills which thy world suffers from are the
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  Speaker 1: children of fevered brains, of mines made restless and visionary
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  Speaker 1: by the high temperature of the blood which gallops through
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  Speaker 1: the approaches to the dome of thought, stirring up wild
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  Speaker 1: dreams and visions as thy son lifts the poisonous vapor
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  Speaker 1: from the stagnant pool. The more I listened to Bulbrain,
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  Speaker 1: the more I liked him. The fact of the matter is,
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  Speaker 1: I preferred to sit in his narrow cell, with its
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  Speaker 1: plain walls of ice, lighted up by a single alabaster lamp,
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  Speaker 1: and converse with him to loitering in the splendid throne
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  Speaker 1: room of his frigid majesty King Gelidus. But Bulgar had
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  Speaker 1: discovered that the pelts of Princess Schnebula's divan were much thicker, softer,
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  Speaker 1: and warmer than the single one allowed Lord Hothead, and
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  Speaker 1: therefore he preferred spending his time with her. But fearing
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  Speaker 1: lest he might get into mischief, I didn't dare to
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  Speaker 1: leave him alone with the Princess for too long at
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  Speaker 1: a time. End of Chapter twenty three