"I'm Owner Drgon, fellow," I barked. "These are my honor guard. What provincial welcome is this, from the Great Owner to a loyal liege-man?" That punctured his pomposity a little. He apologized--in a half-hearted way--mumbled something about arrangements, and beckoned over a couple of side-men. One of them came over and spoke to Torbu, who looked my way, hand on dagger hilt. "What's this?" I said. "Where I go, my men go." "There is the matter of caste," said my pink-caped greeter. "Packs of retainers are not ushered _en masse_ into the presence of Lord Ommodurad, Owner of Owners." I thought that one over and failed to come up with a plausible loophole. "Okay, Torbu," I said. "Keep the boys together and behave yourselves. I'll see you in an hour. Oh, and see that Itzenca gets made comfy." The beetle man snapped a few orders, then waved me toward the palace with the slightest bow I ever saw. A six-man guard kept me company up the steps and into the Great Pavilion. I guess I expected the usual velvet-draped audience chamber or barbarically splendid Hall, complete with pipers, fools, and ceremonial guards. What I got was an office, about sixteen by eighteen, blue-carpeted and tasteful ... but bare-looking. I stopped in front of a block of blue-veined grey marble with a couple of quill pens in a crystal holder and, underneath, leg room for a behemoth, who was sitting behind the desk. He got to his feet with all the ponderous mass of Nero Wolfe but a lot more agility and grace. "You wish?" he rumbled. "I'm Owner Drgon, ah ... Great Owner," I said. I'd planned to give my host the friendly-but-dumb routine. I was going to find the second part of the act easy. There was something about Ommodurad that made me feel like a mouse who'd just changed his mind about the cheese. Qohey had been big, but this guy could crush skulls as most men pinch peanut hulls, and in his eyes was the kind of remote look that came of three millenia of not even having to mention the power he asserted. "You ignore superstition," observed the Big Owner. He didn't waste many words, it seemed. Gope had said he was the silent type. It wasn't a bad lead; I decided to follow it. "Don't believe in 'em," I said. "To your business then," he continued. "Why?" "Just been chosen Owner at Bar-Ponderone," I said. "Felt it was only fitting that I come and do obeisance before Your Grace." "That expression is not used." "Oh." This fellow had a disconcerting way of not getting sucked in. "Lord Ommodurad?" He nodded just perceptibly, then turned to the foremost of the herd who had brought me in. "Quarters for the guest and his retinue." His eyes had already withdrawn, like the head of a Galapagos turtle into its enormous shell, in contemplation of eternal verities. I piped up again.