as to behave myself to
the King, and how kiss his hand and the rest. I knew very well all these
things, but I listened to him as if I did not, and even put a question
or two; and he answered me very graciously.

"You should be very modest with His Majesty," he said, "if you would
please him. He likes not originals over-much; or, rather, I would
say--(but it must not be repeated)--that he likes to be the only
original of the company."

And when Mr. Chiffinch said that I knew that he was lying to me; for the
very opposite was the truth; and I understood that he still had his
suspicions of me and wished me to fail with the King. But I nodded
wisely, and thanked him.

A couple of Yeomen of the Guard--of which body no man was less than six
feet tall--stood at the foot of the little stairs that led up to the
King's lodgings: and these made no motion to hinder the King's page and
his companion. So English were they that they did not even turn their
eyes as we went through, Mr. Chiffinch preceding me with an apology.

At the door on the landing of the first floor he turned to me again
before he knocked.

"His Majesty will be within the second room," he said. "Will you wait,
Mr. Mallock, please, in this first anteroom, and I will go through. This
is a private reception by His Majesty. There will be no formalities."

He tapped upon both the doors that were one inside the other; and then
led me through. The first chamber was very richly furnished, though
barely. There was a long table with chairs about it; and he led me to
one of these. Then with a nod or two he passed on to a second door,
tapped upon it softly and went through, closing it behind him. I heard a
woman's laugh as he went through, suddenly broken off.

There was, I supposed (and as I learned afterwards to be the case) one
other way at least out of the King's lodgings, through his private
library, where he kept all his clocks and wheels and such-like; for
when, after a minute or two, the door opened again and Mr. Chiffinch
beckoned me in, there was no woman with the King.

It was a great room--His Majesty's closet as it was called--which he
used for such solitary life as he led; and while I was with him, and
afterwards upon other occasions, I saw little by little how it was
furnished. The table in the midst, at which His Majesty wrote, was all
in disorder; it was piled high with papers and books, for he would do
what writing or reading he cared to do by fits