There was a graceless hammering on the door.
"Too late!" cried Gala Tropile in panic. "They are here!"
Citizen Germyn went through the ritual of greeting, of deprecating the ugliness and poverty of his home, of offering everything he owned to his visitors; it was the way to greet a stranger.
The two men lacked both courtesy and wit, but they did make an attempt to comply with the minimal formal customs of introduction. He had to give them credit for that; and yet it was almost more alarming than if they had blustered and yelled.
For he knew one of these men.
He dredged the name out of his memory. It was Haendl. The same man had appeared in Wheeling the day Glenn Tropile had been scheduled to make the Donation of the Spinal Tap—and had broken free and escaped. He had inquired about Tropile of a good many people, Citizen Germyn included, and even at that time, in the excitement of an Amok, a Wolf-finding and a Translation in a single day, Germyn had wondered at Haendl's lack of breeding and airs.
Now he wondered no longer.
But the man made no overt act and Citizen Germyn postponed the raising of the hue and cry. It was not a thing to be done lightly.
"Gala Tropile is in this house," the man with Haendl said bluntly.