“I am Cugel.”
“This way then! You will be pleased with the opportunities! … Are you coming? At Flutic we are brisk!”
Despite all, Cugel held back. “Tell me something of the employment! I am, after all, a person of quality, and I do not turn my hand to everything.”
“No fear! Master Twango will accord you every distinction. Ah, Cugel, you will be a happy man! If only I were young again! This way, if you please.”
Cugel still held back. “First things first! I am tired and somewhat the worse for travel. Before I confer with Master Twango I would like to refresh myself and perhaps take a bite or two of nourishment. In fact, let us wait until tomorrow morning, when I will make a far better impression.”
The old man demurred. “At Flutic all is exact, and every jot balances against a corresponding tittle. To whose account would I charge your refreshment? To Gark? To Gookin? To Master Twango himself? Absurd. Inevitably the consumption would fall against the account of Weamish, which is to say, myself. Never! My account at last is clear, and I propose to retire.”
“I understand nothing of this,” grumbled Cugel.
“Ah, but you will! Come now: to Twango!”
With poor grace Cugel followed Weamish into a chamber of many shelves and cases: a repository of curios, to judge by the articles on display.
“Wait here a single moment!” said Weamish and hopped on spindly legs from the room.
Cugel walked here and there, inspecting the curios and estimating their value. Strange to find such objects in a place so remote! He bent to examine a pair of small quasi-human grotesques rendered in exact detail. Craftsmanship at its most superb! thought Cugel.
Weamish returned. “Twango will see you shortly. Meanwhile he offers for your personal regalement this cup of vervain tea, together with these two nutritious wafers, at no charge.”
Cugel drank the tea and devoured the wafers. “Twango’s act of hospitality, though largely symbolic, does him credit.” He indicated the cabinets. “All this is Twango’s personal collection?”
“Just so. Before his present occupation he dealt widely in such goods.”
“His tastes are bizarre, even peculiar.”
Weamish raised his white eyebrows. “As to that I cannot say. It all seems ordinary enough to me.”
“Not really,” said Cugel. He indicated the pair of grotesques. “For instance, I have seldom seen objects so studiously repulsive as this pair of bibelots. Skillfully done, agreed! Notice the detail in these horrid little ears! The snouts, the fangs: the malignance is almost real! Still, they are undeniably the work of a diseased imagination.”
The objects reared erect. One of them spoke in a rasping voice: “No doubt Cugel has good reason for his unkind words; still, neither Gark nor I can take them lightly.”
The other also spoke: “Such remarks carry a sting! Cugel has a feckless tongue.” Both bounded from the room.
Weamish spoke in reproach. “You have offended both Gark and Gookin, who came only to guard Twango’s valuables from pilferage. But what is done is done. Come; we will go to Master Twango.”
Weamish took Cugel to a large workroom, furnished with a dozen tables piled with ledgers, crates and various oddments. Gark and Gookin, wearing smart long-billed caps of red and blue respectively, glared at Cugel from a bench. At an enormous desk sat Twango, who was short and corpulent, with a small chin, a dainty mouth and a bald pate surrounded by varnished black curls. Under his chin hung a faddish little goatee.
Upon the entrance of Cugel and Weamish, Twango swung around in his chair. “Aha, Weamish! This gentleman, so I am told, is Cugel. Welcome, Cugel, to Flutic!”
Cugel doffed his hat and bowed. “Sir, I am grateful for your hospitality on this dark night.”
Twango arranged the papers on his desk and appraised Cugel from the corner of his eye. He indicated a chair. “Be seated, if you will. Weamish tells me that you might be inclined to employment, under certain circumstances.”
Cugel nodded graciously. “I will be pleased to consider any post for which I am qualified, and which offers an appropriate compensation.”
Weamish called from the side: “Just so! Conditions at Flutic are always optimum and at worst meticulous.”
Twango coughed and chuckled. “Dear old Weamish! We have had a long association! But now our accounts are settled and he wishes to retire. Am I correct in this, Weamish?”
“You are, in every last syllable!”
Cugel made a delicate suggestion: “Perhaps you will describe the various levels of employment available and their corresponding perquisites. Then, after analysis, I will be able to indicate how best I can serve you.”
Weamish cried out: “A wise request! Good thinking, Cugel! You will do well at Flutic, or I am much deceived.”
Twango again straightened the papers on his desk. “My business is simple at its basis. I exhume and refurbish treasures of the past. I then survey, pack, and sell them to a shipping agent of Saskervoy, who delivers them to their ultimate consignee, who, so I understand, is a prominent magician of Almery. If I shape each phase of the operation to its best efficiency — Weamish, in a spirit of jocularity, used the word ‘meticulous’ — I sometimes turn a small profit.”
“I am acquainted with Almery,” said Cugel. “Who is the magician?”
Twango chuckled. “Soldinck the shipping agent refuses to release this information, so that I will not sell direct at double profit. But from other sources I learn that the consignee is a certain Iucounu of Pergolo … Cugel, did you speak?”
Cugel smilingly touched his abdomen. “An eructation only. I usually dine at this time. What of your own meal? Should we not continue our discussion over the evening repast?”
“All in good time,” said Twango. “Now then, to continue. Weamish has long supervised my archaeological operations, and his position now becomes open. Is the name ‘Sadlark’ known to you?”
“Candidly, no.”
“Then for a moment I must digress. During the Cutz Wars of the Eighteenth Aeon, the demon Underherd interfered with the overworld, so that Sadlark descended to set matters right. For reasons obscure — I personally suspect simple vertigo — Sadlark plunged into the mire, creating a pit now found in my own back garden. Sadlark’s scales persist to this day, and these are the treasures which we recover from the slime.”
“You are fortunate in that the pit is so close to your residence,” said Cugel. “Efficiency is thereby augmented.”
Twango tried to follow Cugel’s reasoning, then gave up the effort. “True.” He pointed to a nearby table. “There stands a reconstruction of Sadlark in miniature!”
Cugel went to inspect the model, which had been formed by attaching a large number of silver flakes to a matrix of silver wires. The sleek torso stood on a pair of short legs terminating in circular webs. Sadlark lacked a head; the torso rose smoothly to a prow-like turret, fronted by a particularly complex scale with a red node at the center. Four arms hung from the upper torso; neither sense organs nor digestive apparatus were evident, and Cugel pointed out this fact to Twango as a matter of curiosity.
