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''hold that thought'' and rushed to
the back to do something in response to a quick-triple beat beeping
noise. The ticking wall clock chimed about then -- it did count the
quarters -- and Vertu wondered if the clock-count was part of
Granita's secret to good service . . .
    Vertu's usual morning dish of Ronian Cheese
was warming, it being a port-staple at all hours, and a proper-size
cup sat on the counter side among a triple dozen of other
unmatching and mostly oversized cups, the one waiting on Vertu, as
had become a custom at the Flourpower these last seventy-seven
mornings.
    The Hooper said little to anyone, save
Granita. In respect of his station, and also in acknowledgment of a
service done her, Vertu accorded him a nod, and a half-raised hand,
which was considered a ''good-morning'' here.
    Chatter overheard from
others of Flourpower's reggers taught Vertu that The Hooper was an
''organeer'' -- a musician, so she gathered, though the precise
instrument eluded her understanding. Still, it would seem that any
life event of importance -- births, deaths, trothings -- was made
moreso by the presence of The Hooper and the blessing of his art.
There were such on Liad -- galan'ranubiet they were called:
Treasures of the House.
    True enough that The Hooper little looked
like a Treasure. His clothes in winter-come were the same as in
winter-coming -- a brown hat with a brim all around and a small
crown festooned with tiny green and white feathers -- and a coatlet
half as thick as hers, which he took off without fail upon
entering, to reveal a vest with two dozen vari-size pockets, each
pocket showing the tip of something metallic. He rarely took off
his hat, which covered a half-bald spot in a head of otherwise
bushy colorless hair, and when he did it was to neaten the thick
sideburns of the same no-color that stopped abruptly in a razor
sharp line, giving way some days to a light stubble and others to a
face as smooth as hers.
    Vertu had thought him an elder when first
she had seen him; an impression that persisted. Others of the
reggers called him Old Fellow, and others his proper name -- and
none with anything but respect.
    Some mornings, The Hooper bent over his mug
as if hoarding it, sipping his 'toot with no crackers, and those
mornings his hands moved restlessly over his pockets, as if he
counted, as if the contents were pets that required gentling. On
other mornings, he sat relaxed with his 'toot and crackers, and a
side of morning beans, and even engaged in an odd kind of
conversation with others of the reggers, though never with Vertu
herself.
    Quite outside his obvious
status as a Treasure, Vertu acknowledged a debt to The Hooper. Her
first morning world-side, cold beyond any previous experience,
disoriented and lost, she had someway stumbled after The Hooper, who had walked as
a man who knew his street and also his destination, entered
Flourpower in his wake, and stood behind him at the counter. He had
ordered his meal, and she, tired and ragged-minded, uncomprehending
the menu scrawled upon the pale blue wipe-board, had scarcely
managed a whisper -- ''What he is having, I will have.''
    That was the second from the last time she
had willfully ordered 'toot, though of a day she might yet ask for
crackers, and now that she was acknowledged regger, she owed him
too for the information that, ''Dems reggers that brin thanown cup,
dems saves a cup of fife!''
    The fifth filled cup was free if you had
your own cup, brought to the counter and offered, that stayed on
the premises. Both Granita and her late-help Bets knew each cup by
its owner, and knew, too, what went into each without fail.
    Vertu's beverage might be the oddest of all,
for into her cup now went a measured haspoon of the local Yellobud
tea, which was acceptable if brewed half as long as the locals did,
the boiled water tempered by a cube before it was poured.
    By now, besides The Hooper, she probably
knew most of the reggers by face, and could tell if they'd been