“Ay,” said Dickie, “the mouse which gnawed asunder the toils, just when the lion who was caught in them began to look wonderfully like an ass.”
“Why, thou little hop-the-gutter, thou art as sharp as vinegar this afternoon! But tell me, how didst thou come off with yonder jolterheaded giant whom I left thee with? I was afraid he would have stripped thy clothes, and so swallowed thee, as men peel and eat a roasted chestnut.”
“Had he done so,” replied the boy, “he would have had more brains in his guts than ever he had in his noddle. But the giant is a courteous monster, and more grateful than many other folk whom I have helped at a pinch, Master Wayland Smith.”
“Beshrew me, Flibbertigibbet,” replied Wayland, “but thou art sharper than a Sheffield whittle! I would I knew by what charm you muzzled yonder old bear.”
“Ay, that is in your own manner,” answered Dickie; “you think fine speeches will pass muster instead of good-will. However, as to this honest porter, you must know that when we presented ourselves at the gate yonder, his brain was over-burdened with a speech that had been penned for him, and which proved rather an overmatch for his gigantic faculties. Now this same pithy oration had been indited, like sundry others, by my learned magister, Erasmus Holiday, so I had heard it often enough to remember every line. As soon as I heard him blundering and floundering like a fish upon dry land, through the first verse, and perceived him at a stand, I knew where the shoe pinched, and helped him to the next word, when he caught me up in an ecstasy, even as you saw but now. I promised, as the price of your admission, to hide me under his bearish gaberdine, and prompt him in the hour of need. I have just now been getting some food in the Castle, and am about to return to him.”
“That's right—that's right, my dear Dickie,” replied Wayland; “haste thee, for Heaven's sake! else the poor giant will be utterly disconsolate for want of his dwarfish auxiliary. Away with thee, Dickie!”
“Ay, ay!” answered the boy—“away with Dickie, when we have got what good of him we can. You will not let me know the story of this lady, then, who is as much sister of thine as I am?”
“Why, what good would it do thee, thou silly elf?” said Wayland.
“Oh, stand ye on these terms?” said the boy. “Well, I care not greatly about the matter—only, I never smell out a secret but I try to be either at the right or the wrong end of it, and so good evening to ye.”
“Nay, but, Dickie,” said Wayland, who knew the boy's restless and intriguing disposition too well not to fear his enmity—“stay, my dear Dickie—part not with old friends so shortly! Thou shalt know all I know of the lady one day.”