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"And the to its russeted professorial cadence, "deck themselves out in the castaways tossed fro of the chamber pots"
"But!" the medlar rasped "On your fortune do not ask why there is no water in their h you h, cover yourself with spice rather than take a bath or anoint yourself with unguent--though there be trays clotted with rose petals or rivers floith cardamom-scented almond oil, or lakes of water clear as tears, or"
"Or?" said Galligaskins "Or?"
He beat his storoans The last medlar was silent, or maybe silenced When next it spoke, its words would be lost in the trumpet calls of sooty rye, the worse half a half-rotten onion, that year-old shard of dried-peas pudding Galligaskins cursed his gut Noould never knohy, but follow the medlar’s orders, he knew he must For when had a fruit ever spoken? And speak it did, toelse to do, his way to find a crust in that style-fevered town all dried up He turned around and spat on the ground as a curse and riddance to that worthless, worry-induced peace he’d left behind
He set outand though it took a long tiaskins at every seventh step, and the wrong turn hefrom a dark thicket, he espied a river soup-thickened with fish so fat they floated He walked on them easy as upon a pathand when he stepped upon the other bank and saw the people and the land, his nose cried: You are Here
His mouth filled and overflowed as if the river of saliva could run down his cheek, fall upon his jerkin, drop down to his galligaskins, slither down to the toe of his boot, and from thence to the riverbank, where it could surround and drown and pull the catch back up--but how could it? Werold grabbed at his calves, but the fat slovenly hose had slipped down to his ankles again For a listened, stupid as a dead fish, as he tidied hiood fortune
That he was always Here and never There was a lesson he’d learned only too well on this trip At last, however, Here here he had been sent, for here was so medlar would think real, and not just round, then picked up a scrap of brown stuff hite stripes He sniffed, and shoved it in his : Never shove soob It’s like ter poison your blood and cause your hair to frizzle orf
Gingerbread!
Gingerbread with thick white swirls of icing! No one fro-a-Folloerenvy who could have afforded this aht to eat it--not when there were capes to seek, and new lace caps Their treats were only what could sit from head to feet, on them Their insides were never seen, so had to abide with day-old-breadfresh
Before he knew it, the argufier Werold--weary, starving, workless--ate so erbread that he fell asleep with an ache in his stoh the scraps of twelve nightshirts, thirteen socks, a filuipure sandwiched between two caps, one-half of a too-stale boot, innuy codpiece, a jerkin so padded its owner could stand with his chest puffed out at Cupid And a slice of a detachable sleeve that truly was as big as (the h even thewas the most heavenly food he’d ever stomached, with a smell so divine he wanted never to be out of the presence these rags, he had been able to be picky, being all alone on the bank with not a soul in sight
When the shadows lengthened, instead of trying to eat all the skirts that lay around, he made a bed of five of them and tossed one into the river where the fish it landed on picked a hole in it large enough that Werold could see one of the fish’s protruding eyes, and the profile of its thick lips with a hint of double chin The river that was visible between the fish was clogged with sodden clothing scraps, s the rocks in a path Every few moments, a fish barelya scrap of used apparel
It wasn’t dawn yet when Werold woke a changed ether in silent thankfulness to the wise , knowing that he was sent here for his fortune, he was invigorated and ready to take on any arguument- town so far aas now set for better things, Sharp as a clove, he walked to his unknown destination not caring a jot for the picture he h they did not obey any more than they ever had, he felt as if they juated town, but with no one to challenge hiate had a pattern in white stones that said in swirly letters:
Welco display, were so obliging that he immediately felt at home Everywhere he went, people wanted to help