‘Sinking fast.’
‘Ah. Is that an affirmation or decried destitution?’
‘We’re running out of buyers. No hard coin, and I’m done with credit, especially when it turns out the developers can’t sell the properties. So I’ve had to lay everyone off, including myself.’
‘When did all this happen?’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘Typical. I’m always the last to hear. Is Ezgara hungry, do you think?’
He ate more wax than you did-where do you think all the waste goes?’
‘His or mine?’
‘Master, I already know where yours goes, and if Biri ever finds out-’
‘Not another word, Bugg. Now, by my observations, and according to the notations you failed to make, Ezgara has consumed food equivalent in weight to a drowned cat. Yet he remains tiny, spry, fit, and thanks to our wax lunch today his heads no longer squeak when they swivel, which I take to be a good sign, since now we won’t be woken up a hundred times a night.’
‘Master.’
‘Yes?’
‘I low do you know how much a drowned cat weighs?’
‘Selush, of course.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘You must remember. Three years ago. That feral cat netted in the Rinnesict Estate, the one raping a flightless ornamental duck. It was sentenced to Drowning.’
‘A terrible demise for a cat. Yes, I remember now. The yowl heard across the city’
That’s the one. Some unnamed benefactor took pity on the sodden feline corpse, paying Selush a small fortune to dress the beast for proper burial.’
‘You must be mad. Who would do that and why?’
‘Tor ulterior motives, obviously. I wanted to know how much a drowned cat weighs, of course. Otherwise, how valid the comparison? Descriptively, I’ve been waiting to use it for years.’
Three.’
‘No, much longer. Hence my curiosity, and opportunism., Prior to that cat’s watery end, I feared voicing the comparison, which, lacking veracity on my part, would invite ridicule.’
‘You’re a tender one, aren’t you?’- ‘Don’t tell anyone.’
‘Master, about those vaults.’
‘What about them?’
‘I think extensions are required.’
Tehol used the tip of his right index finger to stroke thej insect’s back-or, alternatively, rub it the wrong way. ‘Already? Well, how far under the river are you right now?’
‘More than halfway.’
‘And that is how many?’