The door to the office opened and something in a green felt cap and a coat of dappled coney fur girded with hempen twine rushed in.

‘Merchant Sulimir is offering two crowns fifteen!’ it squealed.

‘Six and one-sixth,’ Vivaldi swiftly calculated. ‘What do we do, Dainty?’

‘Sell!’ the halfling yelled. ‘A six-fold profit, and you’re still bloody wondering?’

Another something in a yellow cap and a mantle resembling an old sack dashed into the office. Like the first something, it was about two cubits tall.

‘Merchant Biberveldt instructs not to sell for below seven!’ it shouted, wiped its nose on its sleeve and ran out.

‘Aha,’ the dwarf said after a long silence. ‘One Biberveldt orders us to sell, and another Biberveldt orders us to wait. An interesting situation. What do we do, Dainty? Do you set about explaining at once, or do we wait until a third Biberveldt orders us to load the bark onto galleys and ship it to the Land of the Cynocephali? Hey?’

‘What is that?’ Dandelion stammered, pointing at the something in a green cap still standing in the doorway. ‘What the bloody hell is it?’

‘A young gnome,’ Geralt said.

‘Undoubtedly,’ Vivaldi confirmed coldly. ‘It is not an old troll. Anyway, it’s not important what it is. Very well, Dainty, if you please.’

‘Vimme,’ the halfling said. ‘If you don’t mind. Don’t ask questions. Something awful has happened. Just accept that I, Dainty Biberveldt of Knotgrass Meadow, an honest merchant, do not have a clue what’s happening. Tell me everything, in detail. The events of the last three days. Please, Vimme.’

‘Curious,’ the dwarf said. ‘Well, for the commission I take I have to grant the wishes of the client, whatever they might be. So listen. You came rushing in here three days ago, out of breath, gave me a deposit of a thousand crowns and demanded an endorsement on a bill amounting to two thousand five hundred and twenty, to the bearer. I gave you that endorsement.’

‘Without a guaranty?’

‘Correct. I like you, Dainty.’

‘Go on, Vimme.’

‘The next day you rushed in with a bang and a clatter, demanding that I issue a letter of credit on a bank in Vizima. For the considerable sum of three thousand five hundred crowns. The beneficiary was to be, if I remember rightly, a certain Ther Lukokian, alias Truffle. Well, I issued that letter of credit.’

‘Without a guaranty,’ the halfling said hopefully.

‘My affection for you, Biberveldt,’ the banker said, ‘ceases at around three thousand crowns. This time I took from you a written obligation that in the event of insolvency the mill would be mine.’

‘What mill?’

‘That of your father-in-law, Arno Hardbottom, in Knotgrass Meadow.’

‘I’m not going home,’ Dainty declared glumly, but determinedly. ‘I’ll sign on to a ship and become a pirate.’

Vimme Vivaldi scratched an ear and looked at him suspiciously.

‘Oh, come on,’ he said, ‘you took that obligation and tore it up almost right away. You are solvent. No small wonder, with profits like that—’