The sheep-man was almost bleatingly grateful. He turned his large eyes toward her. "Oh, I'd love to! But only if it's all right with you. I mean, I am so sorry to intrude on your privacy. I'd never dream of it normally ..."

Once Bunny had settled him in the inglenook with a hot cup of tea, our visitor was somewhat more composed. I sat in the big armchair between him and Bunny in case he seemed inclined to become hysterical again. He remained calm, if a little incoherent, as he outlined his mission.

"My name is Wensley. I represent the government of Pareley in the dimension of Wuh," he began. "Well, it was the government before ... but I'm getting ahead of myself. My people have never been very worldly. It's terrible to have to admit it, and I don't want to speak ill of others, but I think, well, I think I think that it comes from our never having needed anything much from outsiders before. Our land is fertile, our animals and crops plentiful, our climate more than clement." "It sounds like a paradise," Bunny put in.

Wensley laughed bitterly. "And well you might put it that way, dear lady. It was a pair of dice and a few other devices of the Deveels that landed us in the situation that led to our present plight—but I'm being far too direct." He looked abashed.

"Not at all," I assured him. "Lots of beings have lost money to the Deveels. Does your problem have something to do with gambling?"

"Not exactly," our visitor waffled, with an uncomfortable wriggle. "If our leaders had in truth been gambling, but I think that perhaps in retrospect the games might have been a tiny bit tilted away from strictly fair?"

"If they were Deveel-run, there's no way they would have been fair at all," Bunny stated firmly. "At least, not to anyone from outside their own dimension. Deveels are in business strictly to earn money—all of it, if they can."

"Well," Wensley hesitated, relieved that someone else had put it more strongly