Gluck was so perfectly paralyzed by the appearance of his visitor that he remained fixed, without uttering a word, until the old gentleman turned round to look after his fly-away cloak.  In so doing he caught sight of Gluck’s little yellow head jammed in the window, with its mouth and eyes very wide open indeed.

“Hello!” said the little gentleman, “that’s not the way to answer the door.  I’m wet; let me in.”  To do the little gentleman justice, he was wet.  His feather hung down between his legs like a beaten puppy’s tail, dripping like an umbrella; and from the end of his mustaches the water was running into his waistcoat pockets, and out again like a mill stream.

“I’m very sorry” said Gluck, “but I really can’t.”

“Can’t what?” said the old gentleman.

“I can’t let you in, sir.  My brothers would beat me to death, sir, if I thought of such a thing.  What do you want, sir?”

“Want?” said the old gentleman.  “I want fire and shelter; and there’s your great fire there blazing, crackling, and dancing on the walls, with nobody to feel it.  Let me in, I say.”

Gluck had had his head, by this time, so long out of the window that he began to feel it was really unpleasantly cold.  When he turned and saw the beautiful fire rustling and roaring, and throwing long, bright tongues up the chimney, as if it were licking its chops at the savory smell of the leg of mutton, his heart melted within him that it should be burning away for nothing.

“He does look very wet,” said little Gluck; “I’ll just let him in for a quarter of an hour.”

As the little gentleman walked in, there came a gust of wind through the house that made the old chimney totter.

“That’s a good boy.  Never mind your brothers.  I’ll talk to them.”

“Pray, sir, don’t do any such thing,” said Gluck.  “I can’t let you stay till they come; they’d be the death of me.”

“Dear me,” said the old gentleman, “I’m sorry to hear that.  How long may I stay?”

“Only till the mutton is done, sir,” replied Gluck, “and it’s very brown.”  Then the old gentleman walked into the kitchen and sat himself down on the hob, with the top of his cap up the chimney, for it was much too high for the roof.

“You’ll soon dry there; sir,” said Gluck, and sat down again to turn the mutton.  But the old gentleman did not dry there, but went on drip, drip, dripping among the cinders, so that the fire fizzed and sputtered and began to look very black and uncomfortable.  Never was such a cloak; every fold in it ran like a gutter.

“I beg pardon, sir,” said Gluck, at length, after watching the water spreading in long, quicksilver-like streams over the floor; “mayn’t I take your cloak?”

“No, thank you,” said the old gentleman.

“Your cap, sir?”

“I am all right, thank you,” said the old gentleman, rather gruffly.