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. Within seconds a counting clerk was
at his side. The trader whispered to the young dwarf, and
the clerk scurried away to return moments later with a
fair-sized leather purse. The bag made a resounding, sat-
isfying whack when Goldbuckle slapped it down on the
table.
"Ill-gotten gains if ever I saw such," the dwarf rum-
bled. "But I've never been one not to pay a just debt."
"I never doubted it for a minute," Wingover assured
him. "By the way, what's in the pack I brought you?"
"Money," Goldbuckle said, blandly.
"Money?"
"A year's accumulated proceeds from my ventures at
Pax Tharkas. You'd be amazed at how difficult it is to
make shipments of coin these days, Wingover."
The human's mouth hung open in disbelief. 'You -
you had me set out through the wilderness with your
year's fortune in a pack? Do you know how much I'd
have charged you to take that responsibility? Even if I
took it all?"
"Of course I know," the old dwarf said blandly. "It re-
ally was far cheaper to make a bet of it."
'You scoundrel! You... you..."
"Try, 'bedamned old thieving dwarf,' " the dwarf sug-
gested. "Some good human swearing might make you
feel better."
Wingover sputtered, steamed, and finally subsided.
There was no way around it. He had been fairly and
thoroughly swindled, and had gone along with it whole-
heartedly
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