Michael unwrapped a handsome new velvet suit. “You must have spent every bit that was in the silk purse!” he said ungratefully. “I don’t need this. You’re the one who needs a new suit.”

Howl hooked his boot into what remained of the blue-and-silver suit and held it up ruefully. Sophie had been working hard, but it was still more hole than suit. “How selfless I am,” he said. “But I can’t send you and Sophie to blacken my name to the King in rags. The King would think I didn’t look after my old mother properly. Well, Sophie? Are the boots the right size?”

Sophie looked up from her awed stroking. “Are you being kind,” she said, “or cowardly? Thank you very much and no I won’t.”

“What ingratitude!” Howl exclaimed, spreading out both arms. “Let’s have green slime again! After which I shall be forced to move the castle a thousand miles away and never see my lovely Lettie again!”

Michael looked at Sophie imploringly. Sophie glowered. She saw well enough that the happiness of both her sisters depended on her agreeing to see the King. With green slime in reserve. “You haven’t asked me to do anything yet,” she said. “You’ve just said I’m going to.”

Howl smiled. “And you are going to, aren’t you?”

“All right. When do you want me to go?” Sophie said.

“Tomorrow afternoon,” said Howl. “Michael can go as your footman. The King’s expecting you.” He sat on the stool and began explaining very clearly and soberly just what Sophie was to say. There was no trace of the green-slime mood, now things were going Howl’s way, Sophie noticed. She wanted to slap him. “I want you to do a very delicate job,” Howl explained, “so that the King will go on giving me work like the transport spells, but not trust me with anything like finding his brother. You must tell him how I’ve angered the Witch of the Waste and explain what a good son I am to you, but I want you to do it in such a way that he’ll understand I’m really quite useless.”

Howl explained in great detail. Sophie clasped her hands round the parcels and tried to take it all in, though she could not help thinking, If I was the King, I wouldn’t understand a word of what the old woman was driving at!

Michael meanwhile was hovering at Howl’s elbow, trying to ask him about the perplexing spell. Howl kept thinking of new, delicate details to tell the King and waving Michael away. “Not now, Michael. And it occurred to me, Sophie, that you might want some practice in order not to find the Palace overwhelming. We don’t want you coming over queer in the middle of the interview. Not yet, Michael. So I arranged for you to pay a call to my old tutor, Mrs. Pentstemmon. She’s a grand old thing. In some ways she’s grander than the King. So you’ll be quite used to that kind of thing by the time you get to the Palace.”