along; the time would come when I could do a valuable miracle with it, maybe, but it was a nervous thing to have about me, and I didn’t like to ask the king to carry it. Yet I must either throw it away or think up some safe way to get along with its society. I got it out and slipped it into my scrip, and just then here came a couple of knights. The king stood, stately as a statue, gazing toward them — had forgotten himself again, of course — and before I could get a word of warning out, it was time for him to skip, and well that he did it, too.

He supposed they would turn aside. Turn aside to avoid trampling peasant dirt under foot? When had he ever turned aside himself — or ever had the chance to do it, if a peasant saw him or any other noble knight in time to judiciously save him the trouble? The