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‘He’ll never make a good ‘oss-’older, anyway,’ he said. ‘Lets his work get on top of him. I think he went to get something to eat.’

Victor sat in the dark alley, his back pressed against the wall, and tried to think.

He remembered staying out in the sun too long, once, when he was a boy. The feeling he’d got afterwards was something like this.

There was a soft flopping noise in the packed sand by his feet.

Someone had dropped a hat in front of him. He stared at it.

Then someone started playing the harmonica. They weren’t very good at it. Most of the notes were wrong, and those that were right were cracked. There was a tune in there somewhere, in the same way that there’s a bit of beef in a hamburger grinder.

Victor sighed and fumbled in his pocket for a couple of pennies. He tossed them into the hat.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ he said. ‘Very good. Now go away.’

He was aware of a strange smell. It was hard to place, but could perhaps have been a very old and slightly damp nursery rug.

He looked up.

‘Woof bloody woof,’ said Gaspode the Wonder Dog.

Borgle’s commissary had decided to experiment with salads tonight. The nearest salad growing district was thirty slow miles away.

‘What dis?’ demanded a troll, holding up something limp and brown.

Fruntkin the short-order chef hazarded a guess.

‘Celery?’ he said. He peered closer. ‘Yeah, celery.’

‘It brown.’

‘’S’right. ’S’right! Ripe celery ort to be brown,’ said Fruntkin, quickly. ‘Shows it’s ripe,’ he added.

‘It should be green.’

‘Nah. Yore finking about the tomatoes,’ said Fruntkin.

‘Yeah, and what’s this runny stuff?’ said a man in the queue.

Fruntkin drew himself up to his full height.

‘That,’ he said, ‘is the mayonnaisey. Made it myself. Out of a book,’ he added proudly.

‘Yeah, I expect you did,’ said the man, prodding it. ‘Clearly oil, eggs and vinegar were not involved, right?’

‘Specialitay de lar mayson,’ said Fruntkin.

‘Right, right,’ said the man. ‘Only it’s attacking my lettuce.’

Fruntkin grasped his ladle angrily.

‘Look—’ he began.

‘No, it’s all right,’ said the prospective diner. ‘The slugs have formed a defensive ring.’

There was a commotion by the door. Detritus the troll waded through the diners, with Cut-me-own-Throat Dibbler strutting along behind him.

The troll shouldered the queue aside and glared at Fruntkin.

‘Mr Dibbler want a word,’ he said, and reached across the counter, lifted the dwarf up by his food-encrusted shirt, and dangled him in front of Throat.

‘Anyone seen Victor Tugelbend?’ said Throat. ‘Or that girl Ginger?’

Fruntkin opened his mouth to swear, and thought better of it.

‘The boy was in here half an hour ago,’ he squeaked. ‘Ginger works here mornings. Don’t know where she goes.’

‘Where’d Victor go?’ said Throat. He pulled a bag out of his pocket. It jingled. Fruntkin’s eyes swivelled towards it as though they were ball bearings and it was a powerful magnet.

‘Dunno, Mr Throat,’ he said. ‘He just went out again when she wasn’t here.’

‘Right,’ said Throat. ‘Well, if you see him again, tell him I’m looking for him and I’m going to make him a star, right?’

‘Star. Right,’ said the dwarf.

Throat reached into his moneybag and produced a ten-dollar piece.

‘And I want to order dinner for later on,’ he added.

‘Dinner. Right,’ quavered Fruntkin.

‘Steak and prawns, I think,’ said Throat. ‘With a choice of sunkissed vegetables in season, and then strawberries and cream.’

Fruntkin stared at him.

‘Er—,’ he began.

Detritus poked the dwarf so that he swung backwards and forwards.

‘An’ I’, he said, ‘will ’ave … er … a well-weathered basalt with a aggregate of fresh-hewn sandstone conglomerates. Right?’

‘Er. Yes,’ said Fruntkin.

‘Put him down, Detritus. He doesn’t want to be hanging around,’ said Throat. ‘And gently.’ He looked around at the fascinated faces.

‘Remember,’ he said, ‘I’m looking for Victor Tugelbend and I’m going to make him a star. If anyone sees him, you must tell him. Oh, and I’ll have the steak rare, Fruntkin.’

He strode back to the door.

After he had gone the chattering flowed back like a tide.

‘Make him a star? What’d he want a star for?’

‘I didn’t know you could make stars … I thought they were like, you know, stuck to the sky …’

‘I think he meant make him a star. You know, him himself. Turn him into a star.’

‘How can you make anyone into a star?’

‘I dunno. I suppose you compress them right up small and they burst into this mass of flaming hydrogen?’

‘Good grief!’

‘Yeah! Is that troll mean, or what?’

Victor looked at the dog carefully.

It couldn’t have spoken to him. It must have been his imagination. But he’d said that last time, hadn’t he?

‘I wonder what your name is?’ said Victor, patting it on the head.

‘Gaspode,’ said Gaspode.

Victor’s hand froze in mid-tousle.

‘Tuppence,’ said the dog, wearily. ‘World’s only bloody harmonica-playing dog. Tuppence.’