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leave?”
    “Overnight.”
    “Overnight?”
    “What did I just say? I believe that's what I said. We sail again on the morrow, out with the morning tide.”
    “Fine. That is what I asked. You could have said that in the first, sir, and I'd have been long gone.”
    Magreet didn't answer. He was scowling at a large Bullie who had dropped a barrel on the rocky quay. The barrel burst open, and something dark and oily ran out.
    “You'll pay for that, you lout,” Magreet yelled, “It'll come right off of your back!”
    “In that case,” Finn said, “we shall be spending the night ashore. It will be a great relief to get out of the heat for a while.”
    … It'll give poor Letitia a chance to settle her nerves
, he said to himself,
and get something decent to eat.
    “I don't suppose there's some rule you haven't bothered to tell me about,” he said aloud. “I won't have to buy another ticket to get back on again.”
    The captain looked bewildered. “Are you daft, man? Who ever heard of such a fool thing as that? Meanin' no offense, Master Finn, but I don't see how you landsmen have the wits to piss and eat, and keep yourself clean. Damned if I do …”
    “Oh, how I adore you, Finn! Finn, my sweetness, my darling, my very own love. You are truly the most wonderful man in the world!”
    “I appreciate the thought,” Finn said, making no effort to fend off the moist and tender kisses Letitia showered upon his face. This, in spite of the fact that a passenger or crewman might walk into the cabin at any time, leaving Finn to explain a human and a Newlie in fond embrace.
    “In truth, though, I did nothing at all.”
    “Nothing?
Nothing
, dear Finn?” She twitched her pretty nose and rolled her ebony eyes. “What you have
done
, my love, is save me from—from gross despair and madness. You have given me reason to live!”
    “No, really, I—”
    Letitia suddenly let him go, caught up her skirts and whirled about the small cabin, for an instant baring her lovely legs, always a pleasant sight to see, though Finn hadseen them many times, and certainly a great deal more than that.
    He was pleased with this sudden leap from the depths of despair to unending joy. Still, he couldn't help but think about getting her
back
aboard the ship on the morrow. Letitia had chosen to ignore that part of his tale. She would, he knew, recall it soon enough again.
    The deck was nearly clear of cargo handlers and passengers when Finn brought Letitia on deck. He carried their small overnight satchel, which Letitia had stuffed near to bursting, even though they would only spend the night ashore.
    “It is quite delightful,” Letitia said, gazing at the gray, drab little village that lay beyond the docks. “It looks almost like home, Finn.”
    “Ah, yes it does, in a way, I suppose.”
    It is nothing of the sort
, Finn said to himself, but he knew Letitia would see some beauty in a sewage pool if it was not aboard the
Madeline Rose.
    As he helped Letitia down the gangway, he looked over his shoulder for the captain, but Magreet was nowhere about. And, though several Yowlies clung to the upper riggings, Letitia, in her elation at going ashore, didn't seem to notice they were there.
    The moment Finn and Letitia stepped ashore, the sun dropped behind a bank of clouds, leaving the town in half shadow. Without the harsh and unrelenting light, the crumbling stone and rotting thatch seemed somewhat softer, the drab and muddy shades now partially obscured.
    “I don't like it already,” said Julia Jessica Slagg, clinging to Finn's waist beneath his cloak. “It's a damned pesthole is what it is. A canker, a blemish, a dunghill, a dump. A grubby, vile and shabby place, a—”
    “Shut up,” Finn said quietly, “There are people all about, I shouldn't have to tell you that.”
    Finn hurried Letitia along. As they left the broad wharf for the crowded streets of the town, Finn saw that the grimy shopfronts looked much like those at home, though