of smoke going up from awakening cottages in the valleys, and breaks
all golden over Kentish fields, when going on tip-toe thence it comes
to the walls of London and slips all shyly up those gloomy streets the
milkman perceives it and shudders.

A man may be a Milkman's Working Apprentice, may know what borax is
and how to mix it, yet not for that is the story told to him. There
are five men alone that tell that story, five men appointed by the
Master of the Company, by whom each place is filled as it falls
vacant, and if you do not hear it from one of them you hear the story
from no one and so can never know why the milkman shudders when he
perceives the dawn.

It is the way of one of these five men, greybeards all and milkmen
from infancy, to rub his hands by the fire when the great logs burn,
and to settle himself more easily in his chair, perhaps to sip some
drink far other than milk, then to look round to see that none are
there to whom it would not be fitting the tale should be told and,
looking from face to face and seeing none but the men of the Ancient
Company, and questioning mutely the rest of the five with his eyes, if
some of the five be there, and receiving their permission, to cough
and to tell the tale. And a great hush falls in the Hall of the
Ancient Company, and something about the shape of the roof and the
rafters makes the tale resonant all down the hall so that the youngest
hears it far away from the fire and knows, and dreams of the day when
perhaps he will tell himself why the milkman shudders when he
perceives the dawn.

Not as one tells some casual fact is it told, nor is it commented on
from man to man, but it is told by that great fire only and when the