“Well, that’s all right then, thank goodness.”

Says I, kind of timid-like:

“Is something gone wrong?”

The king whirls on me and rips out:

“None o’ your business! You keep your head shet, and mind y’r own affairs⁠—if you got any. Long as you’re in this town don’t you forgit that ⁠—you hear?” Then he says to the duke, “We got to jest swaller it and say noth’n’: mum’s the word for us .”

As they was starting down the ladder the duke he chuckles again, and says: