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"If the good god is alith us, why must orship him at such an awful hour?" Epiny demanded

"Because it is our duty It’s a small sacrifice he asks of us, to demonstrate our respect for him"

"That," she told me archly, "was a rhetorical question I already know its conventional answer I just think it’s a good idea for all of us to think about it now and then For just as the good god e requests of how men must show their respect, so do men oing up to bed already?"

"I am"

"You won’t stay and hold a seance with me?"

"I…of course not! It’s unholy It’s improper!" I throttled a terrible curiosity to kno a seance worked and if anything real ever happened in one

"Unholy? Why?"

"Well, it is all trickery and lies"

"Hm Well, if itis all trickery, then it can scarcely be sinful Unless, of course…" She paused and looked at me quite seriously, almost as if alarmed "Do you think those mimes who pester people in the Old Square are sinful? They are always pretending to climb ladders or lean on walls that aren’t there Are they unholy, too?"

Spink choked back a laugh I ignored hi to do, or pretending to do, not just because they are all fakery And they are aladies"