“For shame, Dwar f,” came a th ick voice（“Trufflehunter’s,” said Trumpkin）. “We all did as much as the Dwarfs and none more than the King.”
“Tell that tale your own way for all I care,” answered Nikabrik. “But whether it was that the Horn was blown too late, or whether there was no magi it, no help has e. You, you great clerk, you master magi, you know-all； are you still asking us to hang our hopes on Aslan and Kier and all the rest of it?”
“I must fess—I ot deny it—that I am deeply disappointed in the result of the operation,” came the answer.（“That’ll be Doctor elius,” said Trumpkin.）
“To speak plainly,” said Nikabrik, “your wallet’s empty, ys addled, your fish uncaught, your promis broken. Stand aside then ahers work. And that is why—”
“The help will e,” said Trufflehunter. “I stand by Aslan. Have patience, like us beasts. The help will e. It may be even now at the door.”
“Pah！” snarled Nikabrik. “You badgers would have us wait till the sky falls and we all catch larks. I tell you we ’t wait. Food is running short； we lo more than we afford at every enter； our followers are slipping away.”
“And why?” asked Trufflehunter. “I’ll tell you why. Becau it is noid among them that we have called on the Kings of old and the Kings of old have not answered. The last words Trumpkin spoke before he went （a, most likely, to his death） were,‘If you must blow the Horn, do not let the army know why you blow it or what you hope from it.’But that same evening everyone emed to know.”
“You’d better have shoved yray snout in a hors’, Badger, than suggest that I am the blab,” said Nikabrik. “Take it back, or—”
“Oh, stop it, both of you,” said King Caspian. “I want to know what it is that Nikabrik keeps on hinting we should do. But before that, I want to know who tho twers are whom he has brought into our cil and who stand there with their ears open and their mouths shut.”
“They are friends of mine,” said Nikabrik. “And what better right have you yourlf to be here than that you are a friend of Trumpkin’s and the Badger’s? And what right has that old dotard in the black gown to be here except that he is your friend? Why am I to be the only one who ’t bring in his friends?”