“Preposterous!” cried a third. “There’s no youth so hairy in all the world.”
“Nor so homely,” added a fourth.
Before the fifth and sixth could add their opinions, Shelyid cut right to the quick.
“Actually, I’m a dwarf. I’m a very ugly dwarf, and the reason I’m so hairy is because I suffer from that most dread of nervous conditions, hysteria follicularia, the uncontrolled growth and spread of hair upon the body.”
“What?” cried one.
“That old wives’ tale!” bellowed a second.
” ‘Tis true, then,” interjected a third, “the superstition lives on!”
“And in these modern times!” added a fourth.
“Infamous!” and “Disgraceful!” came the voices of the fifth and sixth.
“Why do you think that?” demanded the first.
“W-well,” Shelyid stammered, “it’s just true, that’s all. I’ve always had it.”
“What nonsense!” sputtered the second. He reached down a meaty hand and hauled Shelyid up to the bench. A pot of ale was thrust into the dwarf’s hands.
A very large finger, belonging to the third, wagged before the gnome’s nose. “See here, young man,” pontificated this worthy, “it may be true you’re a dwarf—”
“Difficult to say,” opined the fourth.
“Most difficult,” agreed the fifth. “For who is so wise as to distinguish, with unerring precision, between a little man, a dwarf, a gnome, a midget, a shrimp, a runt, a pygmy, a Lilliputian, a chit, a fingerling, a pigwidgeon, a mite, a dandiprat, a micromorph, an homunculus, a dapperling, a small fry or someone with bad posture, weighted down with the cares of the world?”
“Not us, that’s for sure,” concluded the sixth, “for are we not uneducated, untutored, unlettered and ignorant?”
“Rude, crude, lewd and uncouth, that’s us!” cried the first. This was apparently in the nature of a yahooish toast, for the six rowdies guzzled their pots in unison, Shelyid timidly joining in.
“Now then,” spoke the second, waving to the barkeep for more pots of ale, “who told you that?”
It took a moment before Shelyid, his head swimming with the unaccustomed effects of the evil brew, grasped that the question was directed at him.
“Who told me what?” he asked.
“That you were afflicted with that most dread of nervous conditions, hysteria follicularia,” explained the third.
“Oh. Well, actually it was—I mean, well, I shouldn’t really say.”
“Must have been a wizard,” opined the first.
“Goes without saying,” agreed the second.
“Even old wives don’t believe that fable any more,” added the third.
“Even ancient wives,” contributed the fourth.
“Even crones rotting in their graves.” This from the fifth.
“Even old husbands,” concluded the sixth.
“You mean it isn’t true?” queried Shelyid.
” ‘Course not!” bellowed the first.
“Bilge and rot!” added the second.
“S’natural for some people to be extra hairy like,” slurred the third.
“S’no crime,” came the thick-tongued voice of the fourth.
“Was not Joe himself called ‘Old Shaggy’?” commented the fifth.
“Here’s to Joe!” roared the sixth. This was apparently in the nature of a bumpkin toast, for the six rowdies guzzled their ale pots in unison, Shelyid joining in, with somewhat unseemly haste, if the truth be known.
This ceremony concluded, the first wiped ale foam from his lips and asked: “So, where are you from, short one? Goimr, I expect, judging from your accent, your clothes, and your hesitant and dispirited sense of self-worth.”
“A dismal lot, your Goimrics,” commented the second.
“Can’t hardly blame ’em,” remarked the third.
“True,” said the fourth.
“Better yet than being Kankrese,” countered the fifth.
“Being a trilobite on the ocean floor’s better than being Kankrese,” added the sixth.
“But trilobites’re extinct,” protested Shelyid.
“Exactly his point,” said the first. “And you haven’t answered my question, lad.”
Shelyid fumbled for words. ‘Twas clear as day that the two pots of ale he had already consumed were taking effect upon the never-too-quick-witted gnome. Perhaps it was dawning on him that he was supposed to be obtaining information from lowlifes, not the other way around. Certain it is that this thought would have pierced through to his brain like a poker, had he caught a glimpse of the ferocious glare bestowed upon him from beneath the wizard’s floppy hat. In any event, the dwarf made a valiant attempt at turning the tables.