As it happens, however—and in this we see that primitive cunning so often evidenced by the lower classes—’twas at this very moment that the gargoyle group announced, again as one man, that it was time to turn in for the night. No sooner said than done, the loathsome gang staggered out of the tavern into the darkness of the streets beyond. Yet did the sixth of the motley and disreputable crew pause upon the threshold, and, gazing back within, wave a thorny finger in the direction of the street to his left, announcing: “You’ll find the witch Magrit down this street—two blocks, turn left a block, right three blocks, and there she is—an old great gray house, tall and turreted about. You can’t be missing it.” And so saying, he followed his brethren.
These events recounted, the gentle reader may imagine that it was in no great humor that the wizard returned to his rooms above, dragging his apprentice by the scruff of the neck. Therein he stormed about, casting down curses upon lowlifes in general, a half-dozen lowlifes in particular, and one specific dwarf.
Especially, one specific dwarf.
Indeed, indeed, he waxed most eloquently upon the subject of this one specific dwarf, cursing not only the fate which had saddled him with the witless and unworthy gnome, but every habit, attribute, characteristic, feature, foible, trait, earmark, peculiarity, particularity, singularity, lineament, quality, property, idiosyncrasy, mannerism, tendency, detail, aspect, streak, stripe, crasis, diathesis, disposition, affectation, temperament, bent, bias, warp, woof, twist, turn, leaning, inclination, propensitude as well as propensity, propendency, propension, proclivity, predilection, and predisposition, forgetting not humor, mood, temper, tone, vein, grain, cast, cue, heart, mettle, and spirit, the which, taken together, summarized the persona of this specific dwarf, even including in this condemnation certain descriptions of the gnome which, fairness requires me to say, were something of an exaggeration, of which “cloven-hoofed” was perhaps the least ill-tempered.
No doubt this lecture would have greatly enlightened the wretched dwarf, opening up to his understanding many aspects of his character which the dull-minded runt had not hitherto grasped. But alas, the wizard’s efforts were in vain, for the dwarf Shelyid had long since fainted away, whether in awe and wonder at the wizard’s psychologic facility, or from the unaccustomed effects of many pots of ale, it is difficult to say.
PART XIII
In Which We Return to the
Autobiography of the Malefactor
Sfrondrati-Piccolomini, this Portion
of Whose Story Consists of a Crude and
Unscrupulous Attempt to Win the Favor
of the Reader, by Means of Mawkish
Romance and Melodrama.
The Autobiography of Benvenuti Sfondrati-Piccolomini,
Episode 7: Signs, Signals, Sighs and Sorrows
So it was on such a note of frustration that I awoke the following day. Gwendolyn and I saw little of each other. She spent the whole day sitting at a table in a corner of the Free Lunch, talking to an endless stream of people who came in and out of the alehouse. All of them ambled in with a smile and left in a hurry, great frowns on their faces. I made it a point not to overhear her conversations, but it was plain enough even to one of my limited grasp of politics that she was energetically spreading the word through the revolutionary network. And I couldn’t help but overhear some of the comments made by people as they left the alehouse, among which “A Rap Sheet!” and “We’re doomed!” figured prominently.
I couldn’t help but overhear, I say, because I myself spent the morning perched on the colonnade in the front of the Free Lunch. As I had promised the Tapster, I repaired his sign. When I was done, if I may say so myself, I had turned the thing into a work of art.
Then, partly because I had nothing else to do and partly because my artist’s instincts, once aroused, are difficult to control, I started working on the entire colonnade. The underlying construction of the colonnade was sound enough, but whoever had built it had absolutely no sense of decoration and what little they had was long since eroded by the elements.
So there I was, happily painting and carving away, when I heard a loud voice below.