"No, indeed," I said hastily. Something in my old gentleman's blandness was anything but reassuring. "I beg Tzin Piaôu's pardon, I am sure," said I. "And," said I, pulling out my purse, "if in my hurry I was unfortunate enough to injure the door in any way, I'd be more than glad—"
"Not at all, not at all," my old gentleman assured me. "It's a very solid door, indeed."
"I'm so glad of that," said I, putting up my purse.
"Still," purred the old gentleman thoughtfully, "of course one can never tell just how a god may feel about irreverence. In cases of doubt, the small precaution of an offering—"
I handed him a piece of gold, and he stowed it away, very carefully, in his girdle, just over the pit of his stomach. "My son," he said benignantly, "through me, his representative, T'zin Piaôu deigns to thank you and assure you that all is forgotten."
Receiving the thanks of a god was such an unwonted experience to me that I was not sure I could acknowledge them in proper form. So I bowed, and held my tongue. There are worse moves, in tight places, for one who can bow with dignity.
"And now, my son," said my old gentleman, poking subconsciously with the forefinger of his right hand at a hard spot just over his stomach, "tell me what has put you out. For you are put out."
"It's your infernal Little Gods," said I, boldly. "I'm sick of them."
"My infernal Little Gods!" he murmured. "What a curious conjunction of contradictory terms. And so you are sick of them. Why?"
"Their taste seems to run wholly to Tragedy," I complained, "and such dingy Tragedy. And such unnecessary Tragedy. How they do work to entangle some childish negro giant, some weak simpleton of a common soldier—"