All clean."
"Well, sire?"
"How could he be? His father in bed, no one even to close the
shutter. How could he be clean?"
"But, if he was, sire?"
For answer Henry seized me by the arm, turned me round without a
word, and in a moment was hurrying me back to the house. I
thought that he was going thither again, and followed
reluctantly; but twenty paces short of the door he crossed the
street, and drew me into a doorway. "Can you see the shutter?"
he said. "Yes? Then watch it, my friend."
I had no option but to resign myself, and I nodded. A moist and
chilly wind, which blew through the street and penetrating our
cloaks made us shiver, did not tend to increase my enthusiasm;
but the King was proof even against this, as well as against the
kennel smells and the tedium of waiting, and presently his
persistence was rewarded. The shutter swung slowly open, the
noise made by its collision with the wall coming clearly to our
ears. A minute later the boy appeared in the doorway, and stood
looking up and down.
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