ing a word, until the old gentleman
turned round to look after his fly-away cloak. In so doing he caught
sight of Gluck's little yellow head jammed in the window, with its mouth
and eyes very wide open indeed.

"Hello!" said the little gentleman, "that's not the way to answer the
door. I'm wet; let me in." To do the little gentleman justice, he _was_
wet. His feather hung down between his legs like a beaten puppy's tail,
dripping like an umbrella; and from the end of his mustaches the water
was running into his waistcoat pockets, and out again like a mill
stream.

"I'm very sorry" said Gluck, "but I really can't."

"Can't what?" said the old gentleman.

"I can't let you in, sir. My brothers would beat me to death, sir, if I
thought of such a thing. What do you want, sir?"

"Want?" said the old gentleman. "I want fire and shelter; and there's
your great fire there blazing, crackling, and dancing on the walls, with
nobody to feel it. Let me in, I say."

Gluck had had his head, by this time, so long out of the window that he
began to feel it was really unpleasantly cold. When he turned and saw
the beautiful fire rustling and roaring, and throwing long, bright
tongues up the chimney, as if it were licking its chops at the savory
smell of the leg of mutton, his heart melted within him that it should
be burning away for nothing.

"He does look _very_ wet," said little Gluck; "I'll just let him in for
a quarter of an hour."

As the little gentleman walked in, there came a gust of wind through the
house that made the old chimney totter.

"That's a good boy. Never mind your brothers. I'll talk to them."

"Pray, sir, don't do any such thing," said Gluck. "I can't let you stay
till they come; they'd be the death of me."

"Dear me," said the old gentleman, "I'm sorry to hear that. How long may
I stay?"

"Only till the mutton is done, sir," replied Gluck, "and it's very
brown." Then the old gentleman walked into the kitchen and sat himself
down on the hob, with the top of his cap up the chimney, for it was much
too high for the roof.

"You'll soon dry there; sir," said Gluck, and sat down again to turn the
mutton. But the old gentleman did _not_ dry there, but went on drip,
drip, dripping among the cinders, so that the fire fizzed and sputtered
and began to look very black and uncomfortable. Never was such a cloak;
every fold in it ran like a gutter.

"I beg pardon, sir," said Gluck, at length, after watching the w