it in a dream."

"Then Edam must yet be in Vlama," said I, "if he were able to tell ye.
Canst bring him to me? I would know him."

And so it came about that, on the eve of that same day, Maka brought
Edam to my house. I remember it well; for 'twas the same day that the
emperor, in gratitude of my little service in the anteroom, had relieved
me from my post in the armory and made me captain of the palace guard. I
was thus become the youngest captain, also the biggest and strongest;
and, as will soon appear, by far the longest-headed.

I was in high good humor, and had decided to celebrate with a feast. So
when my two callers arrived, I sat them down before a meal such as cost
a tenth [Footnote: Since Mercury had no moon, its people never coined a
word to correspond with our "month," and for the same reason they never
had a week. Their time was reckoned only in days, years, and fractions
of the two.] of my year's salary.

I served not only the usual products of the field, variously prepared,
but as a special gift from the emperor's own stock, a piece of mulikka
meat, frozen, which had been found in the northland by some geologists a
few years aback. It had been kept in the palace icing-room all this
time, and was in prime condition. Maka and I enjoyed it overmuch, but
Edam would touch it not.

He was a slightly built lad, not at all the sturdy man that I am, but of
less than half the weight. His head, too, was unlike mine; his forehead
was wide as well as tall, and his eyes were mild as a slave's.