“Mighty nice order you just gave me, Ahdio,” Ivalia was saying with a smile.
“Mighty nice doing business with you-and gracious, I had no idea you were a cat
person, too! That makes it all the better.”
The disposition of an angel, Ivalia had-a red-faced angel-and arms like a
cooper’s. Everything about her was round and healthy and on the large side,
positively brimming and glowing ruddy with health. Everything except her nose
and her chest, he thought, a little wistfully; both were as flat as a fallen
pie. Still … a man did get lonely and thought now and again of a real woman, a
companion rather than merely some one-night wench. And in this gods-forsaken
town to which he had exiled himself…. Ahdio smiled at her. That showed as a
crinkling of his eyes and a writhing of his winter beard; he stopped shaving
every year in autumn and removed the whole growth again a few months later when
real heat started to set in. Just now the beard was not long, but already
obscured most of his face.
“What’s your kittycat’s name, Ahdio?” she asked, practically burbling, beaming
at him.
Ahdio looked a bit embarrassed, pushed a finger up into his brown-pepper-and
salt beard, and scratched. “I, ah, named him Sweetboy,” he admitted.
The round-faced sausagemaker clapped her hands. “How sweet! My kittycats are
named Cinnamon, and Topaz, and Micklety, and Kadakithis, wasn’t that naughty of
me?-and Chase (that’s short for Chase-mouser) and Pan-pie, and Hakiem, and
Babyface, and-oh, pardon me; yes, what would you like?”
That to the new customer who had come to the unwitting rescue of Ahdio, whose