Some of this he taught me when I was not yet a man. Why he should have
done so, I know not, save that he seemed to value my affection, and
liked not my mother's demands that I heed her call, not his. At all
events, I oft found his shop a place of refuge from her wrath; and I
early came to value his teachings.

When I became a man he abruptly ended the practice. I think he saw that
I was become as dexterous as he with the tools of the craft, and he
feared lest I know more than he. Well he might; the day I realized this
I laughed long and loud. And from that time forth he taught me, not
because he chose to, but because I bent a chisel in my bare hands,
before his eyes, and told him his place.

Many times he strove to trick me, and more than once he all but caught
me in some trap. He was a crafty man, and relied not upon brawn, but
upon wits. Yet I was ever on the watch, and I but learned the more from
him.

"Ye are very kind," I mocked him one morning. When I had taken my seat a
huge weight had dropped from above and crushed my stool to splinters,
much as it would have crushed my skull had I not leaped instantly aside.
"Ye are kinder than most fathers, who teach their sons nothing at all."

He foamed at his mouth in his rage and discomfiture. "Insolent whelp!"
he snarled. "Thou art quick as a cat on thy feet!"

But I was not to be appeased by words. I smote him on the chest with my
bare hand, so that he fell on the far side of the room. "Let that be a
warning," I told him, when he had recovered, some time later. "If ye
have any more tricks, try them for, not on, me." Which I claim to be a