A Slight Cash-flow Problem

She picked up her dress, and took out the dagger from its hidden pouch, then emerged from behind the curtain and handed the dress to Wu. "Here you are," she said. "I hope you can get the stain out - and the smell too."

"I sure I can," Wu assured her. He used tongs to put her dress into one of the basins. Then he poured in some cold water before adding boiling water from a large kettle. He poured in some soap flakes, then took a tool that consisted of a heavy rock attached to the end of a long pole, and started pounding the dress with it.

"Er, won't that damage the dress?" Astra asked, rather alarmed.

"You say you want stain out. Vomit vely hard to get out. This only way. Now you pay me, please. Five gold pieces."

That seemed rather extortionate to Astra, but she was in no position to argue. She had no money herself, but if she could only manage to wake Fred then she was sure that he would pay. Only then did she remember something rather worrying. Fred had told her when they first met that he had no money. [17376]

"Er, can I owe you?" she asked.

"Stlictly cash, no cledit," Wu said. He was becoming agitated, and as he did so he was having more trouble with his "r"s.

"But I don't have any money," Astra said. "However I always pay my debts. I give you my word of honour that you will be paid."

"Laundry cost five gold pieces. Your dless worth seven gold pieces. Towel worth two. I keep dless, you keep towel, and we quits."

"My dress is worth ten times that! You can't possibly keep it for a five gold piece debt!"

After a long argument:

1. Astra found that Wu was immovable.
2. Wu wouldn't return the dress, but Astra persuaded him to give her something rather better than the towel - something that a previous customer had never collected.
3. Astra persuaded Wu to let her have her dress back. He had done a fantastic job on it.
4. Astra persuaded Wu to let her have her dress back. Or rather what proved to be the rags that were all that was left of her dress. She wondered if he had done it deliberately.
5. Wu returned her dress on condition that she worked for him for the rest of the day to pay off the debt.

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