'It come over me, in a bitter wave like, that here was I, a master craftsman, who had worked no bounds, soul or body, to make the King's tomb and chapel a triumph and a glory for all time; and here, d'you see, I was made knight, not for anything I'd slaved over, or given my heart and guts to, but expressedly because I'd saved him thirty pounds and a tongue-lashing from Catherine of Castile--she that had asked for the ship. That thought shrivelled me withinsides while I was folding away my draft. On the heels of it--maybe you'll see why--I began to grin to myself. I thought of the earnest simplicity of the man--the King, I should say--because I'd saved him the money; his smile as though he'd won half France! I thought of my own silly pride and foolish expectations that some day he'd honour me as a master craftsman. I thought of the broken-tipped sword he'd found behind the hangings; the dirt of the cold room, and his cold eye, wrapped up in his own concerns, scarcely resting on me. Then I remembered the solemn chapel roof and the bronzes about the stately tomb he'd lie in, and--d'ye see?--the unreason of it all--the mad high humour of it all--took hold on me till I sat me down on a dark stair-head in a passage, and laughed till I could laugh no more. What else could I have done? [Illustration: I kneeled, and he tapped me on the shoulder. 'Rise up, Sir Harry Dawe,' he says.--P. 74.] 'I never heard his feet behind me--he always walked like a cat--but his arm slid round my neck, pulling me back where I sat, till my head lay on his chest, and his left hand held the knife plumb over my heart--Benedetto! Even so I laughed--the fit was beyond my holding--laughed while he ground his teeth in my ear. He was stark crazed for the time. '"Laugh," he said. "Finish the laughter. I'll not cut ye short. Tell me now"--he wrenched at my head--"why the King chose to honour you--you--you--you lickspittle Englishman? I am full of patience now. I have waited so long." Then he was off at score about his Jonah in Bury Refectory, and what I'd said of it, and his pictures in the chapel which all men praised and none looked at twice (as if that was _my_ fault!) and a whole parcel of words and looks treasured up against me through years. '"Ease off your arm a little," I said. "I cannot die by choking, for I am just dubbed knight, Benedetto." '"Tell me, and I'll confess ye, Sir Harry Dawe, knight. There's a long night before ye. Tell," says he.