“No money?” the proprietor gasped.
“No. I just came in here to get out of the rain.”
“Rain? Rain? But it isn’t raining!”
“It isn’t?” my apprentice blinked. “Then, goodbye.”
With that she ambled off, making a hole in yet another tent side as she went.
The Deveel sank down in the shattered remains of his display and cradled his face in his hands.
“I’m ruined!” he moaned. “Ruined!”
“Excuse me for asking,” I said. “But why didn’t you call out their names and get them under control?”
“Call out their names? I can’t remember the name of every Djin I collect. I have to look them up each time I sell one.”
“Well, at least that problem’s behind you.”
That started him off again.
“Ruined!” he repeated needlessly. “What am I going to do?”
“I really don’t know why you’re so upset,” I observed. “Weren’t you just saying that you were insured?”
“Insured?”
The Deveel’s head came up slowly.
“Certainly. You’re paying to be sure things like this don’t happen, aren’t you? Well, it happened. It seems to me whoever’s protecting your shop owes you an explanation, not to mention quite a bit of money.”
“That’s right!” the proprietor was smiling now. “More the latter than the former, but you’re right!”
I had him going on now. All that was left to be done was the coup de grace.
“Tell you what. Just so your day won’t be a total washout, I’ll take this one. Now you won’t have to stay open with just one Djin in stock.”
I flipped him the smallest coin in my pouch. True to his heritage, he was sneering even as he plucked it out of the air.