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For Werold was Ranug-a-Folloerenvy’s only argufier, as necessary as the glove maker He had much to do with the rich and would have died a slovenly but relatively wealthy ancient, if the rich hadn’t got themselves into such a muckle

It happened this way:

One day a drab nullness of asome time before, returned--a new man--from, he said, far Ghovenir Or rather, that is what soh they knew not this mouthful-of-stones, they did not question where? but tsked and answered with an impatient nod and a quick "So? Yes, yes Go on" For the question wasn’t where he went, but what he wore now that he’d returned

The ladies swooned, to be brought to life only with a clod of chicken scat up a nostril Men secreted themselves, unbuttoned sleeves as fat and slashed and colourful as candied-fruit-stuffed pheasants, and blew their noses into the embroidered cloth Each man was suddenly as ashaarden that suddenly wasn’t Paradise Tavern braggarts, cock-strutting swaggarts, lute-picking peach-firrandfathers with faces like empty sacks, all men alike--each ) and matched that to his wits to find a tailor to make up, without much lucre, a suit like that which had caused the swoons Now such a tio, it seems, were little versions of their fine-clothed parents, noandered free, undisciplined, unfed And in ear? Whatever rags they pleased The town’s air shimmered with the cries of worief melted the starch in pleats that were once so proud, they could hold the woth of style alone--till that traveller, Bladsteth, blessed and cursed be he, the cause of all this wilt

Every woman of any worth cursed Bladsteth’s cheek, for he’d returned alone No lady did he bring with him, nor key, nor word to what a lady’s ould be to mate the splendour of his cockscoar a dromedary caravan And the , screamed If only a she had co entler sex’s cry, lady to lady: Be mode as me, you wish! On my own e me, as an old dried pea

And so, ith the men consumed by fashion with no tirief and then with hunger (for when his tailor took the whole of each man’s all, what man had time to notice women, children, or even his stoaskins such a drying-up of arguh the town resounded with grief, Galligaskins’ sniffs could pick out not one rumour that added up to a dispute that he could eat froreatest trouble miser in the toould have nor-a-Folloerenvy’s only guilded disputationist, the doubly-good su from both sides of any case were now, many times over, doubly lost and missed Starved, his leather inkpot shrivelled till its sides entle ox’s cut-purse The worthy citizens were too busy For the askins spent a coin on a pair of boots so practical, theythe best (least torn) of his two y shirts, a once-fashionable jerkin that was now a chest-war he considered a cape but no self-respecting ass would bear tossed over its shoulders, he left the place he had been born His hobnails rang on the cobbles in a ry that when he came upon a stunted medlar tree at the top of a hill, he braved it--a rash action Being winter, the tree was bare of leaves Every fruit that had met the wind had fallen, and had been eaten in the snow by creatures who knew not that the fashion for these fruits had ended generations past

The tree had one stolid trunk and ether like a poor man and wife in front of the landlord But the araskins bared hi his body like a key, he stuck his arm in Thorns raked his flesh and pricked his wrist as he stretched his fingers forthand plucked the last relean, a handful Burnished and dry-pi boils, they s skin and stones till just after the tenth medlar when his shrunken belly, delicate froaskins, er, regarded the last suppurating erously swollen of the tear, its tannic skin, its gassy flesh, its five rock-hard, rough-edged stones

Now the last led from the dry sharpness of that skin He breathed into his hands to catch the last wisps of sretted his haste His stomach turned, but as he dressed hi up his right galligaskin when his gut growled a most unfamiliar note

And with no ado, the eleventh medlar spoke

"Walk fifty-and-seven steps," it said, and though its voice was rusty, each syllable was quite precisely paced, "with the sun warht side of your face Then cut across the field till you come to a place where there are five rocks that you can see poking from the soil at the base of the barley stalks And," said the askins, "If you see no rocks because they have walked away or because they lie, then continue as you please until you need to stop and eat

"Continue on, and one day you will codo--keep still! Mind askins rubbed his sto

"As I was saying," said the ufier when interrupted that Werold held his breath in awe

The medlar must have felt Werold’s ad at juicy gossip "The people in the kingdom I speak of wear jerkins, surcoats, cloaks, skirts, ui froht fresh everyclass Thems that serve wears the yesterday’s, or the day before’s," the ed as if it had heard that rhyme ever since it was a bud