THE KING AT THE DOOR

The pictures are Rowlandson via Zemach, and the yarn might be termed School of Zemach--but it's a good yarn, and the pictures play effectively to it. ""Master! Master!"" cries chore-boy Little Baggit to the Pickwickian innkeeper. ""The King is at the door!"" But, on rushing to the window, all that the innkeeper sees is ""an old man in a patched shirt""--so he sloughs off each of the stranger's requests. Instead of a glass of wine (""He's been walking over his roads all day counting his milestones,"" says Little Baggit, ""and he's thirsty""), the innkeeper proffers a mug of dishwater; for dinner, the dog's scraps; and so on. But each time Little Baggit makes good his master's deficiency--with his own ale, his own bread, etc. And each time the innkeeper sardonically commends him: ""Little Baggit, you're brighter than a burnt match,"" or such. As children will quickly guess, the last laugh is on the innkeeper--for doesn't the King come back to fetch Little Baggit ""first thing tomorrow in his royal coach,"" just as he's said he will! Crisply told, energetically pictured, and unmistakably amusing.