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>Now goblins are cruel, wicked, and bad-hearted. They make no beautiful
things, but they make many clever ones. They can tunnel and mine as well as
any but the most skilled dwarves, when they take the trouble, though they are
usually untidy and dirty. Hammers, axes, swords, daggers, pickaxes, tongs, and
also instruments of torture, they make very well, or get other people to make
to their design, prisoners and slaves that have to work till they die for want
of air and light. It is not unlikely that they invented some of the machines
that have since troubled the world, especially the ingenious devices for
killing large numbers of people at once, for wheels and engines and explosions
always delighted them, and also not working with their own hands more than
they could help; but in those days and those wild parts they had not advanced
(as it is called) so far. They did not hate dwarves especially, no more than
they hated everybody and everything, and particularly the orderly and
prosperous; in some parts wicked dwarves had even made alliances with them.
But they had a special grudge against Thorin’s people, because of the war
which you have heard mentioned, but which does not come into this tale; and
anyway goblins don’t care who they catch, as long as it is done smart and
secret, and the prisoners are not able to defend themselves.