"Dangerous," said Alvin.

"I agree," said Mike. "We'd be insane to go there. Isn't that where that lawyer fellow Daniel Webster came from? He'll know about you, Alvin."

"He's in Carthage City making money from corrupt men," said Alvin.

"Last you heard of him, maybe," said Mike. "But he can write letters. He can come home. Things can go wrong."

Arthur Stuart looked up at Mike Fink. "Things can go wrong lying in your own bed on Sunday."

Alvin at last opened his eyes. "I have to learn. Verily's right. It's not enough to learn Makering. I have to learn governing, too, and city building, and everything else. I have to learn everything about everything, and I'm just getting farther behind the longer I sit here."

Arthur Stuart looked glum. "So I'm never going to meet the King."

"Far as I'm concerned," said Mike Fink, "you are the real Arthur Stuart, and you've got as much right as he has to be king in this land."

"I want him to make me a knight."

Alvin sighed. Mike rolled his eyes. Verily put a hand on Arthur's shoulder. "The day the King knights a half-Black boy..."

"Can't he knight the White half?" asked Arthur Stuart. "If I do something real brave? That's how a fellow gets hisself knighted, I hear."

"Definitely time to go to New England," said Alvin.

"I tell you I got misgivings," said Mike Fink.

"Me too," said Alvin. "But Verily's right. They built a good place and got good people to come to it."

"Why not go to that Tennizy place as calls itself Crystal City?" asked Mike.

"Maybe that's where we'll go after we get run out of New England," said Alvin.

Verily laughed. "You're an optimist, aren't you."