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Phineas had been reduced to spending the night on a
bench in front of a habberdasher's, having exhausted
the entire day following one sign after another.
Begging an apple from a friendly greengrocer next to
the haberdasher, he limped down the street now, his
left leg more than an inch taller than his bootless right.
He could have sworn he'd passed this way before, for
he seemed to recognize shop fronts and even a little
park across the way, but he followed an arrow that
supposedly led to the palace.
Suddenly, in mid-block, an arrow pointed across the
street and into a candlemaker's shop. Puzzled, Phineas
stood in the stoop under the shop's sign and looked
several times from the arrow to the interior of the shop
strung with candles. Surely this couldn't be the
palace -- could it?
Abruptly the door swung open and a female kender
in a wax-spattered apron stepped out. Kicking a brick
into place to hold the door open, she said, "My first
customer of the morning always gets a special on the
big beeswax candles. Normally one copper a piece, but
you can have three for six copper." She squinted at the
human and added, "You look terrible, mister. Did you
know you're missing a boot? Wanna swap for it?"
"Yes, I know," he said lethargically "And I'm not in-
terested in swapping my boot for any candles this
morning, thank you. But I would like to know why the
sign across the street says that this is the way to the
palace."
" 'Cause this is," she said curtly.
"This is the palace?" Phineas barked in disbelief
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