"Surely they must obey your commands!"

Through some extraordinary flexibility of feature, Doctor Lalanke managed to seem both apologetic and amused. "So one would think. I often wonder how they regard me: certainly not as their master."

"Most singular! How did they come into your custody?"

"I must inform you that I am a man of great wealth. I live beside the Szonglei River not far from Old Romarth. My manse is built of rare woods: tirrinch, gauze difono, skeel, purple trank, camfer and a dozen others. My life might well be one of ease and splendor, but, to validate the fact of my existence, I annotate the lives and works of the great magicians. My collection of memorabilia and curious adjuncts is remarkable." As he spoke his eyes rested upon the scale 'Spatterlight', which Cugel used for a hat ornament.

Cugel asked cautiously: "And you yourself are a magician?"

"Alas! I lack the strength. I can grasp a trifling spell against stinging insects, and another to quiet howling dogs, but magic like yours, which wafts a ship through the air, is beyond my capacity. And while we are on the subject, what of the object you wear on your hat: it exhales an unmistakable flux!"

"The object has a curious history, which I will relate at a more convenient time," said Cugel. "At this moment —"

"Of course! You are more interested in the 'mimes', as I call them, and this may well be the function for which they were contrived."

"I am mostly interested in ejecting them from my cabin."

"I will be brief, though I must revert to Grand Motholam of the late eighteenth aeon. The arch-magician Moel Lei Laio lived in a palace cut from a. single moonstone. Even today, if you walk the Plain of Gray Shades, you may find a shard or two. When I excavated the old crypts I found a cambent box containing three figurines, of cracked and discolored ivory, each no larger than my finger. I took these objects to my manse and thought to wash away the grime, but they absorbed water as fast as I applied it, and I finally put them into basins to soak overnight. In the morning I found the three as you see them now. I used the names Sush, Skasja and Rlys after the Tracynthian Graces and tried to give them speech. Never have they uttered a sound, not even one to the other.

"They are strange creatures, oddly sweet, and I could detail their conduct for hours. I call them 'mimes' because when the mood comes on them they will posture and preen and simulate a hundred situations, none of which I understand. I have learned to let them to do as they will; in return they allow me to care for them."

"All very well," said Cugel. "Now the mimes of the late eighteenth aeon must discover the reality of today, as embodied in the person of Cugel. I warn you, I may be forced to eject them bodily!"