us deep blue of the sky he
dressed contentedly, and, taking one last look, went off to his work
with a glory in his mind. It would have been difficult for the
customers of Messrs. Mergin and Chater to guess the precise ambition
of Mr. Sladden as he walked before them in his neat frock-coat: it was
that he might be a man-at-arms or an archer in order to fight for the
little golden dragons that flew on a white flag for an unknown king in
an inaccessible city. At first Mr. Sladden used to walk round and
round the mean street that he lived in, but he gained no clue from
that; and soon he noticed that quite different winds blew below his
wonderful window from those that blew on the other side of the house.

In August the evenings began to grow shorter: this was the very remark
that the other employees made to him at the emporium, so that he
almost feared that they suspected his secret, and he had much less
time for the wonderful window, for lights were few down there and they
blinked out early.

One morning late in August, just before he went to Business, Mr.
Sladden saw a company of pikemen running down the cobbled road towards
the gateway of the mediaeval city--Golden Dragon City he used to call
it alone in his own mind, but he never spoke of it to anyone. The next
thing that he noticed was that the archers were handling round bundles
of arrows in addition to the quivers which they wore. Heads were
thrust out of windows more than usual, a woman ran out and called some
children indoors, a knight rode down the street, and then more pikemen
appeared along the walls, and all the jack-daws were in the air. In
the street no troubadour sang. Mr. Sladden took one look along the
towers to see that the flags were flying, and all the golden dragons
were streaming in the wind. Then he had to go to Business. He took a
bus back that evening and ran upstairs. Nothing seemed to be happening
in Golden Dragon City except a crowd in the cobbled street that led
down to the gateway; the archers seemed to be reclining as usual
lazily in their towers, and then a white flag went down with all its
golden dragons; he did not see at first that all the archers were
dead. The crowd was pouring towards him, towards the precipitous wall
from which he looked; men with a white flag covered with golden
dragons were moving backwards slowly, men with another flag were
pressing them, a flag on which there was one huge red bear. Another
banner went down upon