“That is the style! ‘My dear Louis!’ as long as your arm. To a fortnight’s acquaintance, a workman, a ’prentice! why, what are you going to call me, who has known you these five and twenty years? who put the file in your fist? who am the master? this is the advantage of having white hands and a glib tongue.”
“I will call you ‘My good Gamain’ if you like. I speak to the lad affectionately because I owe to him the joy of seeing my old master again: not because he speaks prettily or keeps his hands smooth, for you know I think nothing of these fine ways—but I like him for proving it was false what they said about my never seeing you any more.”
“Well, it was not me that held back, but that wife of mine. She was always saying: ‘Gamain, you have bad acquaintances, those who fly too high for you. It is not good to hobnob with aristocrats nowadays. We have a little property—look after it. Let us rear our young ones: and let the Dauphin learn locksmithing from others than you, if he wants to, like his father before him. There are plenty of smiths in France.'”
Louis glanced at the apprentice, and stifling a sigh, partly sad and partly rallying, said:
“No doubt, but there are few like you.”
“Just what I said to the master when I called on him,” said the young man, “I told him the King was making a hidden-bolt lock; and that he had got along very well till he came to the sliding bolt itself——“
“I should think so,” interrupted Gamain: “bless you, the bolt is the backbone of a lock. It is not given to everybody to get over that difficulty.”
“No, nor mine in passing the examination you put me through to be convinced I came from the King,” replied the young man, laughing. “You said it was a trap laid by your enemies; but the twenty-five yellow boys sent by his Majesty convinced you. So off we started, and here we are.”
“And welcome,” said the royal smith, thanking the speaker with a glance; “and now, Master Gamain, as you appear in a hurry, let us tackle the job.”
“You have hit it. I promised the mistress that I should be home by evening. Let us see this puzzler of a lock.”