The window would not open, so that he never heard the songs
that the troubadours sang down there beneath the gilded balconies; he
did not even hear the belfries' chimes, though he saw the jackdaws
routed every hour from their homes. And the first thing that he always
did was to cast his eye round all the little towers that rose up from
the ramparts to see that the little golden dragons were flying there
on their flags. And when he saw them flaunting themselves on white
folds from every tower against the marvelous deep blue of the sky he
dressed contentedly, and, taking one last look, went off to his work
with a glory in his mind. It would have been difficult for the
customers of Messrs. Mergin and Chater to guess the precise ambition
of Mr. Sladden as he walked before them in his neat frock-coat: it was
that he might be a man-at-arms or an archer in order to fight for the
little golden dragons that flew on a white flag for an unknown king in
an inaccessible city. At first Mr. Sladden used to walk round and
round the mean street that he lived in, but he gained no clue from
that; and soon he noticed that quite different winds blew below his
wonderful window from those that blew on the other side of the house.
In August the evenings began to grow shorter: this was the very remark
that the other employees made to him at the emporium, so that he
almost feared that they suspected his secret, and he had much less
time for the wonderful window, for lights were few down there and they
blinked out early.
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