n we could speak--he thought we'd been fighting--we told the Master.
Yes, we told Torrigiano, and he laughed till he rolled on the new cold
pavement. Then he knocked our heads together.

'"Ah, you English!" he cried. "You are more than pigs. You are English.
Now you are well punished for your dirty fishes. Put the draft in the
fire, and never do so any more. You are a fool, Hal, and you are a fool,
Benedetto, but I need your works to please this beautiful English King."

'"And I meant to kill Hal," says Benedetto. "Master, I meant to kill him
because the English King had made him a knight."

'"Ah!" says the Master, shaking his finger. "Benedetto, if you had
killed my Hal, I should have killed you--in the cloister. But you are a
craftsman too, so I should have killed you like a craftsman, very, very
slowly--in an hour, if I could spare the time!" That was Torrigiano--the
Master!'

Mr Springett sat quite still for some time after Hal had finished.
Then he turned dark red; then he rocked to and fro; then he coughed and
wheezed till the tears ran down his face. Dan knew by this that he was
laughing, but it surprised Hal at first.

'Excuse me, sir,' said Mr Springett, 'but I was thinkin' of some stables
I built for a gentleman in Eighteen hundred Seventy-four. They was
stables in blue brick--very particular work. Dunno as they weren't the
best job which ever I'd done. But the gentleman's lady--she'd come
from Lunnon, new married--she was all for buildin' what was called
a haw-haw--what you an' me 'ud call a dik--right acrost his park. A
middlin' big job which I'd have had the contract of, for she spoke to me
in the library about it. But I told her there was a line o' springs just
where she wanted to dig her ditch, an' she'd flood the park if she went
on.'

'Were there any springs at all?' said Hal.

'Bound to be springs everywhere if you dig deep enough, ain't there?
But what I said about the springs put her out o' conceit o' diggin'
haw-haws, an' she took an' built a white tile dairy instead. But when
I sent in my last bill for the stables, the gentleman he paid it 'thout
even lookin' at it, and I hadn't forgotten nothin', I do assure you.
More than that, he slips two five-pound notes into my hand in the
library, an' "Ralph," he says--he allers called me by name--"Ralph," he
says, "you've saved me a heap of expense an' trouble this autumn." I
didn't say nothin', o' course. I knowed he didn't want any haws-haws
digge