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Where I came from. Will you please stop doing that?'

'Oh.'

'Oook?'

There was a pause. Then Twoflower said, 'You see, last night it occurred to me, I thought, well, the thing is, all this travelling and seeing things is fine but there's also a lot of fun to be had from having been. You know, sticking all your pictures in a book and remembering things.'

'There is?'

'Oook?'

'Oh, yes. The important thing about having lots of things to remember is that you've got to go somewhere afterwards where you can remember them, you see? You've got to stop. You haven't really been anywhere until you've got back home. I think that's what I mean.'

Rincewind ran the sentence across his mind again. It didn't seem any better second time around.

'Oh,' he said again. Well, good. If that's the way you look at it. When are you going, then?'

'Today, I think. There's bound to be a ship going part of the way.'

'I expect so,' said Rincewind awkwardly. He looked at his feet. He looked at the sky. He cleared his throat.

'We've been through some times together, eh?' said Twoflower, nudging him in the ribs.

'Yeah,' said Rincewind, contorting his face into something like a grin.

'You're not upset, are you?'

'Who, me?' said Rincewind. 'Gosh, no. Hundred and one things to do.'

That's all right, then. Listen, let's go and have breakfast and then we can go down to the docks.'

Rincewind nodded dismally, turned to his assistant, and took a banana out of his pocket.

'You've got the hang of it now, you take over,' he muttered.

'Oook.'

In fact there wasn't any ship going anywhere near the Agatean Empire, but that was an academic point because Twoflower simply counted gold pieces into the hand of the first captain with a halfway clean ship until the man suddenly saw the merits of changing his plans.

Rincewind waited on the quayside until Twoflower had finished paying the man about forty times more than his ship was worth.

'That's settled, then,' said Twoflower. 'He'll drop me at the Brown Islands and I can easily get a ship from there.'

'Great,' said Rincewind.

Twoflower looked thoughtful for a moment. Then he opened the Luggage and pulled out a bag of gold.

'Have you seen Cohen and Bethan?' he said.

'I think they went off to get married,' said Rincewind. 'I heard Bethan say it was now or never.'

'Well, when you see them give them this,' said Twoflower, handing him the bag. 'I know it's expensive, setting up home for the first time.'

Twoflower had never fully understood the gulf in the exchange rate. The bag could quite easily set Cohen up with a small kingdom.

'I'll hand it over first chance I get,' he said, and to his own surprise realised that he meant it.

'Good. I've thought about something to give you, too.'

Source: www.allfreenovel.com
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