The condemned arrived, Pippino with a lordly air, as if he were the prince of the halflings at the court of the steuard, and Smeagollo looking base, cruel, and both stinky and slinky – in short, not at all the sort who would have conquered many ladies' hearts at the annual ball at Rivendeau.
At the moment in which Pippino arrived at the foot of the guillotine, a penitent cloaked in grey, with yellow boots and a silver beret, approached the official in charge of the execution, though all the hosts of Lottaloria stood between them, and handed him a small sheet of paper. Having read the paper, the official raised a hand and said, "May Elberette be praised, and may Her Buxomness be blessed!" he cried. "Clemency is granted to Pippino. Eglerio! Andave laituvalme Alatariella!"
"Praise her with great praise!" cried the people.
But Smeagollo struck a discordant note. "Clemency for Pippino? Why clemency for him and not for me? So wise they are, so just, so very just," he added sarcastically. He threw himself from the hands of the two elf-sages who held him, and writhed and tried to bite the rope. "The rope burns us, Precious, but yet more burns us the knowledge that he will live and I will die! He's a villain and a mushroom-thief. Kill him!"
