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.

"Yes, no doubt," said Twango. "Things are done differently in the overworld. Like the model, Sadlark was constructed of scales on a matrix not of silver wires but wefts of force. When Sadlark plunged into the mire, the dampness annulled his forces; the scales dispersed and Sadlark became disorganized, which is the overworld equivalent of mortality."