Twango stood dubiously aside and watched as Cugel sieved a third bucket-load of slime. "It is very strange about Gookin. How could he imagine the 'Spatterlight' in such vivid detail?"

"Bah!" said Cugel. "I cannot take time to reflect upon Gookin's fantasies."

"That is quite enough, Cugel! I am not interested in your views. In exactly seven minutes you are scheduled to sanitize the laundry."

Halfway through the afternoon Master Soldinck, of the firm Soldinck and Mercantides, arrived at Flutic. Cugel conducted him to Twango's work-room, then busied himself nearby while Soldinck and Twango discussed the missing scales.

As before, Soldinck asserted that the scales had never truly been given into his custody, and on these grounds demanded a full refund of his payment.

Twango indignantly rejected the proposal. "It is a perplexing affair," he admitted. "In the future we shall use iron-clad formalities."

"All very well, but at this moment I am concerned not with the future but with the past. Where are my missing scales?"

"I can only reiterate that you signed the receipt, made payment, and took them away in your wagon. This is indisputable! Weamish would so testify were he alive!"

"Weamish is dead and his testimony is worth nothing."

"The facts remain. If you wish to make good your loss, then the classical recourse remains to you: raise the price to your ultimate customer. He must bear the brunt."

"There, at least, is a constructive suggestion," said Soldinck. "I will take it up with Mercantides. In the meantime, we will soon be shipping a mixed cargo south aboard the Galante, and we hope to include a parcel of scales. Can you assemble another order of four cases, within a day or so?"

Twango tapped his chin with a plump forefinger. "I will have to work overtime sorting and indexing; still, using all my reserves, I believe that I can put up an order of four cases within a day or two."

"That will be satisfactory, and I will report as much to Mercantides."

Two days later Cugel placed a hundred and ten scales, for the most part 'ordinaries', before Twango where he sat at his work table.

Twango stared in sheer amazement. "Where did you find these?"

"I seem to have plumbed the pocket from which Weamish took so many scales. These will no doubt balance my account."

Twango frowned down at the scales. "A moment while I look over the records. . . . Cugel, I find that you still owe fifty-three terces. You spent quite heavily in the refectory and I show extra charges upon which you perhaps failed to reckon."

"Let me see the invoices. ... I can make nothing of these records."

"Some were prepared by Gark and Gookin. They are perhaps a trifle indistinct."

Cugel threw down the invoices in disgust. "I insist upon a careful, exact and legible account!"

Twango spoke through compressed lips. "Your attitude, Cugel, is both brash and cynical. I am not favorably impressed."

"Let us change the subject," said Cugel. "When next do you expect to see Master Soldinck?"