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Werold turned away, sickened

His sto, like a fish!

On dry land, he spent an hour looking for just the right yesterday’s clothes, enough and good enough to make an outfit that could pass as fashionable, and fresh When he finally found shoes h, he next found a plain undecorated cloak Then he stripped hi his cape, hat, jerkin, shirt, and boots upon the cloak He balled his galligaskins and shoved them in his boots Then with a look back at the fish, who he didn’t trust, and a unanswered question about the future--What of the people in this town to come, the limits of their discontent? In case he had to run, he shoved the bundle into the hedge as far as he could reach, at shoulder height Only then did he dress in his strange but askins were thick and soft, and stood upright as toy soldiers

Back to town he walked, no longer needing pause to bend

The n, where he was immediately surrounded by curious Pleasanzers--so ufier does, and what he could do to improve the lives of all who flourish here, in this most pleasant town, if I may pun, he smiled His audience smiled back, but there were some raised eyebrows "Perhaps you do not pun," he bowed, in case some in the croere inclined to take offence They looked so physically capable--if they spoiled to fight He pointed out each swirly word in his sign and explained it bare No one had ever heard or seen an Argufier, Disputator, Pilpulist, Disceptator, Belicossic, or Wrangulumentor

To illustrate the wonders that his advocacy would bring, he then pointed to the iron-circled red-ena n His explanation had alorked before because what they showed, and their barring, spoke plainly to everyone who couldn’t read in Ranug-a-Folloerenvy (and that hof barring, let alone backstabbers, fork-bladed or not (Someone held up a butter knife and asked, "You ers?") They smiled and clapped when Werold said "bonefire", and an elder showered co from the topmost skull, but this could not cover up their embarrassment of befuddle over it on the spit, which they thought he was clasping, an urge they assured the newcomer they were free of

And "No wine?" asked one worried Pleasanzer about the vial Poison was too foreign a so that these portrayals were too ancient for him to know, but that the work he did was too modern and necessary for anyone in Pleasanz to be concerned about such old ways, so consider them effuzlements of portriment, he said That, invermore, by the by when all is said and done

The Pleasanzers were un to treat thenable Panicking, he e, but this one contained the word today

The result was faster than a new fashion sighted in Ranug-a-Folloerenvy

Werold learned in moments that Today was the Pleasanzers’ most important word, concept, creed, bond, pro in Pleasanz revolved around today So ot so much work that first today, and the next, and the next, that he had never been so busy

They paid well, too: anything he asked They didn’t want to bargain, never cried poor Pleasanzers carried wads of papernotes from sleeves and hat briufier had forgotten he’d ever been called Galligaskins He was rich, and not only that--so well respected! Since no one had ever had a dispute here, they left theuments that spread a web across Pleasanz more interconnected and elaborate than that of the u them, they were so perfect