Two hours later, bathed, shorn, refreshed, and wearing new garments of black, green and red, Cugel sat in the common room of the River Inn with a plate of spiced sausages and a flask of green wine.

“This matter of a just settlement poses problems of extreme delicacy,” he mused. “I must move with caret”

He poured wine from the flagon, and ate several of the sausages. Then he opened his pouch and withdrew a small object wrapped carefully in soft cloth, the violet cusp which Lucounu wished as a match for the one already in his possession. He raised the cusp to his eye but stopped short: it would display the surroundings in an illusion so favorable that he might never wish to remove it. And now, as he contemplated the glossy surface, there entered his mind a program so ingenious, so theoretically effective and yet of such small hazard, that he instantly abandoned the search for a better.

Essentially, the scheme was simple. He would present himself to Lucounu and tender the cusp, or more accurately, a cusp of similar appearance. Lucounu would compare it with that which he already owned, in order to test the efficacy of the coupled pair, and inevitably look through both. The discord between the real and the false would jar his brain and render him helpless, whereupon Cugel could take such measures as seemed profitable.

Where was the flaw in the plan? Cugel could see none. If Lucounu discovered the substitution, Cugel need only utter an apology and produce the real cusp, and so lull Lucounu's suspicions. All in all, the probabilities of success seemed excellent.

Cugel finished his sausages in leisure, ordered a second flagon of wine, and observed with pleasure the view across the Xzan. There was no need for haste; indeed, while dealing with Lucounu, impulsiveness was a serious mistake, as he had already learned.

On the following day, still finding no fault in his plan, he visited a glass-blower whose workroom was established on the banks of the Scaum a mile to the east of Azenomei, in a copse of fluttering yellow bilibobs.

The glass-blower examined the cusp. “An exact duplicate, of identical shape and color? No small task, with a violet so pure and rich. Such a color is most difficult to work into glass; there is no specific stain; all must be a matter of guess and hazard. Still — I will pepare a melt. We shall see, we shall see.”

After several trials he produced a glass of the requisite hue, from which he fashioned a cusp superficially indistinguishable from the magic lens.

“Excellent!” declared CugeL “And now, as to your fee?”

“Such a cusp of violet glass I value at a hundred ter-ces,” replied the glass-blower in a casual manner.

“What?” cried Cugel in outrage. “Do I appear so gullible? The charge is excessive.”

The glass-blower replaced his tools, swages and crucibles, showing no concern for Cugel's indignation. “The universe evinces no true stability. All fluctuates, cycles, ebbs and flows; all is pervaded with mutability. My fees, which are immanent with the cosmos, obey the same laws and vary according to the anxiety of the customer.”