whatever other jobs come to the forge; and if the shoes are not done
by dinner-time you shall have a meal thrown in."

The King looked at the Lad kindly.

"I shall blow your bellows very badly," he said, "and shoe my nag
still worse."

Said the Lad, "You'll learn in time."

"Not before dinner-time, I hope," said the King, "for I am very
hungry."

"You look hungry," said the Lad. "It's a bargain then."

The King held out his hand, but the Lad suddenly whipped his behind
his back. "It's so dirty, sir," he said.

"Give it me all the same," said the King; and they clasped hands.

The rest of that morning the King spent in blowing the bellows, and
by dinner-time not so much as the first of Pepper's hoofs was shod.
For a great deal of business came into the forge, and there was no
time for a lesson. So the King and the Lad took their meal together,
and the King was by this time nearly as black as his master. He
would have washed himself, but the Lad said it was no matter, he
himself having no time to wash from week's end to week's end. In the
afternoon they changed places, and the King stood at the anvil and
the Lad at the bellows. He was a good teacher, but the King made a
poor job of it. By nightfall he had produced shoes resembling all