"What happened to the Yips?"
"Nothing. If you play, pay. Better yet, leave the Yip girls alone."
Uther Offaw glanced skeptically toward Namour.
"Does that apply to you? There always seems to be a pretty Yip girl fluffing out your pillows and another running your bath."
Namour allowed a faint smile to appear on his handsome face.
"Never mind about me. Over a lifetime I've learned a hundred little tricks which I call lubrications. Most of them I keep to myself, but I'll share one of them with you, free of charge: "Never push too hard at anything; it might start pushing back."" Uther frowned.
"Very profound, and I'm grateful, especially since it's free. But what's it got to do with Yip girls?"
"Nothing. Or perhaps everything. You puzzle it out." Namour went off to deal with the new contingent of workers.
The six youths returned along the Beach Road to the lyceum.
In the open-air refectory they discovered a group of girls regaling themselves with fruit ices. Two, Ticia Wook and Lexy Laverty, were legitimate beauties; the other two, Jerdys Diffin and Cloe Offaw, were definitely attractive.
All were a year or two older than Glawen and outside his field of interest.
Uther Offaw, though a freethinker, could be most courtly and polite when the need arose. He now called out in his best voice: "Girls! Why do you bloom here unseen in the shade of the gadroon tree?"
"They're not really blooming," said Kiper.
"They are eating right and left like little gluttons."
Ticia in a single glance had gauged the quality of the boys.
All were either too young or too callow and good for nothing but practice. She looked down at her dish.
"A mango smash?
That's far from gluttony."
"In that case, why bother?"
Jerdys said: "If you must know, this is a meeting of the "Medusa Cult', and we are planning our program for next year."
Cloe said: "We intend to conquer Araminta Station and enslave all the men."
"Hush, Cloe!" exclaimed Jerdys.
"You're giving away cult secrets!"
"We can make up some more. Secrets are easy. I use up dozens every day."
"Ahem!" said Aries.
"Have you noticed our presence? Must we stand here like storks, or are we invited to sit at your table?"
Ticia shrugged.
"Do as you like. But please pay for your own ices."
"No fear. Aside from Glawen and Kiper, you are in the company of cultivated gentlemen."
The four older boys found chairs and managed to squeeze up to the table. Glawen and Kiper were pushed aside and forced to sit somewhat apart at another table: a situation which they accepted philosophically.
Lexy Laverty asked: "Well then, what have you 'cultivated gentle men' been up to?"
"Just wandering about, discussing our investments," said Uther.
Kiper called across the gap: "Aries is behind in his classwork, so we studied anthropology at the ferry slip."
Aries said with dignity: "More to the point, we looked over some space yachts. There's a new Purple Prince which I swear I will buy before ten years is out!"
Kiper, who knew no inhibition, called out: "I thought you were saving up for one of the Yip girls."
"Aha!" said Ticia.
"So that's where you've been! Drooling over the Yip girls like the precocious little lechers you are!"
"Not Aries!" said Uther.
"All he wanted to do was smell them."
Kiper said: "That may or may not be lechery--although it's definitely odd."
