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By Root 682 0

you sometimes scared, or happy, just like that, out of the blue, apropos of nothing? You hurry out on some stupid errand, and suddenly you feel a thrill of improbable, intense, boundless joy? Or it happens that everything seems to be in its rightful place, your beloved is sleeping sweetly next to you, you’re young and full of as much energy as a puppy—and suddenly you feel you are suspended in emptiness, and a leaden sorrow clamps down on your heart, as though you were dead. Not only that, but as though you had never been alive. And sometimes you look at yourself in the mirror, and you can’t remember who that chap is, or why he’s there at all. Then your own reflection turns around and walks away, and you watch silently as it retreats. You don’t have to say anything. I already know that this happens to you from time to time. The same thing happens to me, Max; only I’ve had enough time to get used to it. It happens because something ineffable is reaching for us—we never know where and when it will show up and start tugging on our sleeve. The fact is, you and I have a talent for a strange craft that no one really understands. And, frankly, I can’t tell you anything about it that makes any sense. You know, it’s not customary to talk about this aloud. And it’s dangerous. Things like this should stay secret. There is one person here in Echo who understands more than we do about these things. You’ll meet him at some point. But until then—nary a word. Agreed?”

“Who am I going to talk to, I wonder, besides you? Chuff?”

“Well, yes—you can talk to Chuff, of course. And to me. But soon you’ll embark on a much stormier existence.”

“You’re always threatening that . . .”

“Wasn’t tonight enough proof for you? I would be glad to take you with me to the House by the Bridge, but things move slowly in Echo. I submitted the request for your appointment to the Court . . . yes, the day after our trip to the Glutton. As all matters in my department are decided with maximum efficiency and promptness, everything should be settled within two or three dozen days.”

“You call that ‘maximum efficiency and promptness’?”

“Yes, and so must you.”

Then we were home. Juffin went to his room, and I stayed behind, alone, just the time to think about the darkness into which I was peering. Those dames had given me a scare! And then Juffin, with his lecture about the secret reasons behind the jumps and starts in my moods . . . arghhh!

When I was in my own room, I pulled out the salvaged “box-in-distress” from the pocket of my looxi. Take it easy, sweetheart, Uncle Max may not be all there, but he’s kind and good! He’ll protect you from all misfortune; he’s just going to peer into the darkness . . . But at the very moment of the deepest flowering of my honestly acquired phobia, a warm clump of fur jumped out this very darkness: Max sad—don’t be sad! My little friend Chuff wagged his stumpy tail so violently that the devilish darkness scattered into little bits. I relaxed, banished from my mind the paranoid murmurings of the matronly sirens, and Chuff and I went to the living room to find something to eat while we read the evening news.

As it turned out, I didn’t go to sleep before dawn that day. I waited for Juffin to talk over the events of the evening one more time over a mug of kamra. I must admit, I expected that from that moment on, Sir Juffin would be wracking his brains over the mysterious murder. In other words, like good old Sherlock Holmes, or the equally old and good Commissioner Maigret, he would suck on his pipe for hours on end, and wander about at the scene of the crime. And at the end of yet another sleepless night, and not without my help, he would crack the case of the “ABC Gum Corpse.” Then everyone dances with delight.

I was sorely disappointed. Our morning conference lasted all of twenty minutes. The entire time, Sir Juffin speculated about my lonely future—that is, how I would survive the next three days without him. It turned out that the time for his annual friendly visit to the Royal Court had rolled around, and as this joyful occasion