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. May I come back and discuss it with you?"
"I wish you would." "Good. Jubbul is a well-analyzed culture, but I don't think any student has ever had opportunity to examine it from the perspective you had. I was delighted when I heard that you were a professed mendicant."
"Excuse me?"
"A beggar. Investigators who have been allowed to live there have all been guests of the upper classes. That forces them to see . . . well, the way slaves live for example, from the outside, not the inside. You see?"
"I guess so." Thorby added, "If you want to know about slaves, I was one."
"You were?"
"I'm a freedman. Uh, I should have told you," he added uncomfortably, afraid that his new-found friend would scorn him, now that she knew his class.
"No reason to, but I'm overjoyed that you mentioned it Thorby, you're a treasure trove! Look, dear, I've got to run; I'm late now. But may I come back soon?"
"Huh? Why, surely, Margaret." He added honestly, "I really don't have much else to do."
Thorby slept in his wonderful new bed that night. He was left alone the next morning but he was not bored, as he had so many toys to play with. He opened things out and caused them to fold up again, delighted at how each gadget folded in on itself to occupy minimum space. He concluded that it must be witchcraft Baslim had taught him that magic and witchcraft were nonsense but the teaching had not fully stuck -- Pop had known everything but just the same, how could you fly in the face of experience? Jubbul had plenty of witches and if they weren't practicing magic, what were they doing?
He had just opened his bed for the sixth time when he was almost shocked out of the shoes he had dared to try on by an unholy racket
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