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Rh inside it while I burn up all that fuel, you shall have her, and I will make no more bones about it."

"I can but try," said Boots; "but I must have leave to take one of my crew with me."

"Yes, yes," said the king, "all six of them if you like;" for he thought it would be warm enough in there for all of them.

But Boots took with him the man who had fifteen winters and seven summers inside him, and they trudged off to the malt-house at night. But the king had laid the fuel on thick, and there was such a pile burning, it almost melted the stove. Out again they could not come, for they had scarce set foot inside than the king shot the bolt behind them, and hung two padlocks on the door besides. Then Boots said—

"You'd better slip out six or seven winters at once, so that it may be a nice summer heat."

Then the heat fell, and they could bear it, but on in the night it began to grow chilly; so Boots said he must make it milder with two summers, and then they slept till far on next day.

But when they heard the king rattling at the door outside, Boots said—

"Now you must let slip two more winters, but lay them so that the last may go full on his face."

Yes, he did so; and when the king unlocked the malt-house door, and thought to find them lying there burnt to cinders, there they sat shivering and shaking till their teeth chattered, and the man with the fifteen winters let slip the last right into the king's face, so that it swelled up at once into a big frost-bite.