“Nothing important,” the Djin shrugged.
He seemed a little distracted, but I thought I knew why.
“Kalvin, I’d like to apologize.”
He seemed to relax a little.
“Oh, that’s okay, Skeeve. It’s just that . . .”
“No, I insist. It was rude of me to order without asking
if you wanted something to eat, too. It’s just that it would
have been awkward trying to order food for someone no
one else could see. Understand what I’m trying to say?”
“Of course.”
I seemed to be losing him again.
“It wasn’t that I had forgotten about you, really,” I
pressed. “I just thought that as small as you are, you
68 Robert Asprin
wouldn’t eat much and we could probably share my order.
Now I can see that that’s rather demeaning to you, so if
you’d like your own order …”
“Sharing your meal will be fine. Okay? Can we drop the
subject now?”
Whatever was bothering the Djin, my efforts to change
his mood were proving woefully inadequate. I debated let-
ting it go for the moment, but decided against it. Letting
things go until later was how the situation with Aahz had
gotten into its current state.
“Say … um … Kalvin?”
“Now what?”
“It’s obvious that I’ve gotten you upset, and my trying
to make amends is only making things worse. Now, it wasn’t
my intent to slight you in any way, but it seems to have
happened anyway. If I can’t make things better, can you at
least tell me what it was I did so that I don’t fall into the
same trap again?”
“The wine doesn’t help.”
I nodded at Kalvin’s terse response. He was right. The
wine was hitting me harder than I had expected, making it