Maia

"Like me to rub your back, banzi?" asked the black girl, at length looking up front her mirror. A few minutes later, as Maia lay sighing pleasurably under her hands, she said, "I wish you'd do me a favor: put on that powder-blue

robe-thing I've left out over there. Some bastin' idiot gave it to me in Thettit. I ask you-can you see me in soft blue? But then he was the sort of man who'd put his own zard down somewhere and forget it: probably has by now. Anyone pinch it be doin' him a favor-save him a lot of money, too."

As she brushed Maia's hair and helped her to dress, her ribaldry continued, until both of them were tittering and giggling together about everything and nothing.

"So then this man said-"

"Oh, he never!"

"-so then, you see, I said all right, I'd cut his toe-nails for him. And Cran knows they needed it! They'd have taken a baboon's balls off. So he went and fetched a stool and said he'd be all ready when I came back with the file and the knife. But when I came back I said 'That's not a foot!' and he said, 'Well, maybe not, but it's a good eight inches-' "

"Oh, Occula! You are awful! Hee-hee! Hee-hee!"

"Feelin' better?" said the black girl. "Come on, we'd best be gettin' downstairs now, or Pussy'll be havin' kittens."

When they came into the refectory, however, Zuno was nowhere to be seen. The room was not crowded, for supper was not yet ready, though a pleasant smell of cooking suggested that it would not be much longer.

The two girls, having hesitated a few moments, decided-or at all events Occula decided-that they had better wait for Zuno where they were.

"Lucky he likes to do himself well, isn' it?" said Occula. "We might have found ourselves havin' to hang around in the monkey-house down the other end. All the same, we mustn' stand about here lookin' as if we were up for offers. Let's sit down somewhere out of the way and hope he woan' be much longer."

Well-scrubbed tables with benches took up most of the length of the room. Occula led the way to the nearest corner and they sat down side by side, facing the wall and continuing to talk quietly together.

In the corner furthest from them a group of four or five middle-aged men were also waiting, and at intervals from their direction came a raised voice or a burst of laughter.

"What's that talk they're on with, then?" whispered Maia. "That's never Beklan."

"No, they're Ortelgans," said Occula, "Teltheama frogs, like that damned Megdon. I was beginnin' to think he'd baste like a frog if he could-you know, hang on for two or three days."

"There's one of them keeps looking this way," said Maia. "Oh, Occula, he's getting up, look!"

"I thought the wasps'd be round the blasted jam-pot soon," answered Occula. "Leave this to me, banzi, and for goodness' sake remember Zuno's comin' in any moment. If he were to tell Lalloc he'd found us chattin' up a bunch of Ortelgans-well, anyway, just you sit still, that's all."

A moment later the man, about forty, stocky and dark-bearded, edged his way between the benches and sat down next to Occula. His clothes were of good quality and he had the self-confident air of a prosperous man.

"Good evening, young ladies," he said, speaking Beklan with a marked Ortelgan accent. "Are you dining by yourselves? Will you let me buy you some wine, you and your pretty friend?"

"No, sir," answered Occula, looking fixedly at the table in front of her. "We're expectin' our patron at any moment. I must beg you to leave us. We're respectable girls and our patron will-"

"Well, I'm respectable myself," returned the man. "My friends here and I, we're dealers in rope, from Ortelga. Just been to Bekla, you know." He settled himself more comfortably, putting his elbows on the table and leaning forward to smile past Occula at Maia-"arid now we're going back by way of Thettit and Kabin. I've done pretty well this trip and I enjoy spending money on nice girls. In fact, you could call me a generous man."

Occula said nothing.

"I've never seen a girl like you in my life," went on the man, quite unperturbed. "Now I'd say the chief advantage of such a striking appearance as yours is that you can't blush. Your friend's blushing, though. It suits her very well, too."

At this, poor Maia colored still more deeply: and she was on the point of bursting into nervous giggling when Occula, no doubt anticipating the danger, trod painfully on her toe.

"I saw you arrive this evening," said the man, laying a plump forefinger in the bend of Occula's elbow, "and I saw the fellow you call your patron riding and you walking. Your patron-he keeps pussy-cats, doesn't he? Does he ever sell them? Do you ever sell pussy-cats, eh?"

A voice from the far end of the room called out, "How you getting on, Tephil? Want any help?"