“I daresay I did so, for it is the blessed truth.”
“Then, why do you deny the truth? let me tell you, that with another than me, such chatter would be dangerous?”
“But with you, one is safe, eh? with a regular friend,” said the smith, coaxingly.
“Lord, you have lots of trust in your friend. You say yes and you say no; you wiggle and waver so that none knows how to have you. It is like your fable t’other day about the secret door that a nobleman had you fit on the strict quiet.”
“Then you will not believe this tale either, for it also hangs upon a door.”
“In the palace?”
“In the King’s palace. Only instead of its being a clothes-press door, or rather that of a safe in the wall, it is a cupboard door this time.”
“Are you gaming me that the King, while he certainly dabbles in locksmithery, sent for you to do up a door?”
“He did, though. Poor fellow, he thought he was smart enough to get on without me, and began to make a lock. ‘What good is Gamain anyhow?’ but he got mixed up with the works in the lock and had to fall back on Gamain after all.”
“So you were hunted up by one of his trusty flunkeys, Hue, or Durey or Weber, eh?”