DOG! Mamma! It says DOG!”

“Yes. It says dog.” The sadness in her voice quenched Peter’s excitement at once. His mother pointed from GOD to DOG. “These are the two natures of man,” she said. “Never forget them, because someday you will be King and Kings grow to be great and tall-as great and tall as dragons in their ninth moltings.”

“Father isn’t great and tall,” objected Peter. Roland was, in fact, short and rather bowlegged. Also, he carried a great belly in front of him from all the beer and mead he had consumed.

Sasha smiled.

“He is, though. Kings grow invisibly, Peter, and it happens all at once, as soon as they grasp the scepter and the crown is put on their heads in the Plaza of the Needle!”

“They do?” Peter’s eyes grew large and round. He thought that the subject had wandered far from his failure to use his napkin at the banquet, but he was not sorry to see such an embarrassing topic lost in favor of this tremendously interesting one. Besides, he had already resolved that he would never forget to use his napkin again-if it was important to his mother, then it was important to him.

“Oh yes, they do. Kings grow most awfully big, and that’s why they have to be specially careful, for a very big person could crush smaller ones under his feet just taking a walk, or turning around, or sitting down quickly in the wrong place. Bad Kings do such things often. I think even good Kings cannot avoid doing them sometimes.”

“I don’t think I understand-”

“Then listen a moment longer.” She tapped the slate again. “Our preachers say that our natures are partly of God and partly of Old Man Splitfoot. Do you know who Old Man Splitfoot Is, Peter?”

“He’s the devil.”

“Yes. But there are few devils outside of made-up stories, Pete-most bad people are more like dogs than devils. Dogs are friendly but stupid, and that’s the way most men and women are when they are drunk.