ing him to a realization of his
peril, and rising hastily he ran back to the Ring, where he remained
till morning. But to what pious thoughts he then committed himself I
cannot tell you; neither in what feverish fashion he got through Sunday.

On Monday morning when he arrived at the forge he found the Lad at work
before him, and ebony was not blacker than his face. He glanced at the
King with some show of temper, but only said:

"You look worn out."

"I have had bad dreams," said the King. "Excuse me for being behind my
time. I will try to make up for it by wasting no more, and fashioning
instantly two shoes as good as that I made on Saturday."

But though he handled his tools with more dexterity than he had yet
exhibited, the Lad petulantly pushed aside the first shoe he made,
which to the King appeared to be, if anything, superior to the one he
had made on Saturday. The Lad, however, quickly explained himself,
saying:

"A master-smith who intends to make his apprentice his equal will not
let him rest at the halfway house. I made a shoe like this when I was
fourteen, and all my father said was, I have hopes of you.'"

So for yet another week the King's nose was kept to the grindstone, and
it would have irritated most men to find their good work repeatedly
condemned; but William was, as you may have observed, singularly
sweet-tempered, besides which he desired nothing so much as to remain
where he was. And for another five days he slept and ate and worked,
until the muscles of his arms began to swell, and he swung the hammer
with as much ease as his master, who now left a great part of the work
entirely in his hands. Although in this matter of the third shoe he
refused to be satisfied.

Nevertheless on Saturday morning the King, making a last effort before
the forge was shut, submitted a shoe so far beyond anything he had yet
achieved, that the Lad could not but say, "This is a good shoe." And
Pepper, seeing them coming, lifted her off hind-foot to be shod.

"Now as I live!" cried the King. "Another stone! And how she contrived
to hobble so far is a miracle."

"It isn't a stone," said the Lad, "it is a diamond."

And he presented to the King a diamond of such triumphant brilliance
that it might have been conceived of the ambitions of the mightiest
monarch of the earth.

"You now own surpassing wealth," said the Lad dejectedly, "and you have
no more need to work."

But William would not even touch the st