I warned you not to do it, Your Majesty." This news made the Nome King anxious.

For a few minutes he paced up and down, stroking his long beard and thinking with all his might.

After this he turned to Kaliko and said: "All the harm a dragon can do is to scratch with his claws and bite with his teeth." "That is not all, but it's quite enough," returned Kaliko earnestly.
"On the other hand, no one can hurt a dragon, because he's the toughest creature alive.

One flop of his huge tail could smash a hundred nomes to pancakes, and with teeth and claws he could tear even you or me into small bits, so that it would be almost impossible to put us together again.

Once, a few hundred years ago, while wandering through some deserted caverns, I came upon a small piece of a nome lying on the rocky floor.