Then the Lad said, “Let it pass. I have a proposal to make. My father is dead, and for two years I have worked the forge single-handed. Now I am willing to teach you to shoe your nag with four good shoes and strong, if you will meanwhile blow the bellows for 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 the letters of the alphabet excepting U, and when at last he submitted to the Lad a shoe like nothing so much as a drunken S, his master shrugged and said: “Zeal is praiseworthy within its limits, but the best of smiths does not attempt to make two shoes at once. Let us sup.” They supped; and afterwards the Lad showed the King a small bedroom as neat as a new pin. “I shall sully the sheets,” said William, “and you will excuse me if I fetch the kettle, which is on the boil.” “As you please,” said the Lad, and took himself off. In the morning the King came clean to breakfast, but the Lad was as black as he had been. Tuesday passed as Monday had passed; now William took the bellows, marveling at his youthful master’s deftness, and now the Lad blew, groaning at his pupil’s clumsiness. By nightfall, however, he had achieved a shoe faintly recognizable as such. For a second time the King washed himself and slept again in the little trim chamber, but the Lad in the morning resembled midnight. In this way the week went by, the King’s heart beating a little faster each morning as Saturday approached, and he wondered by what ruse he could explain his absence without creating suspicion or breaking his pledge.