Both Hari Seldon and Dors Venabili had taken rather lingering baths, making use of the somewhat primitive facilities available to them in the Tisalver household. They had changed their clothing and were in Seldon’s room when Jirad Tisalver returned in the evening. His signal at the door was (or seemed) rather timid. The buzz did not last long.

Seldon opened the door and said pleasantly, “Good evening, Master Tisalver. And Mistress.”

She was standing right behind her husband, forehead puckered into a puzzled frown.

Tisalver said tentatively, as though he was unsure of the situation, “Are you and Mistress Venabili both well?” He nodded his head as though trying to elicit an affirmative by body language.

“Quite well. In and out of Billibotton without trouble and we’re all washed and changed. There’s no smell left.” Seldon lifted his chin as he said it, smiling, tossing the sentence over Tisalver’s shoulder to his wife.

She sniffed loudly, as though testing the matter.

Still tentatively, Tisalver said, “I understand there was a knife fight.”

Seldon raised his eyebrows. “Is that the story?”

“You and the Mistress against a hundred thugs, we were told, and you killed them all. Is that so?” There was the reluctant sound of deep respect in his voice.

“Absolutely not,” Dors put in with sudden annoyance. “That’s ridiculous. What do you think we are? Mass murderers? And do you think a hundred thugs would remain in place, waiting the considerable time it would take me—us—to kill them all? I mean, think about it.”

“That’s what they’re saying,” said Casilia Tisalver with shrill firmness. “We can’t have that sort of thing in this house.”

“In the first place,” said Seldon, “it wasn’t in this house. In the second, it wasn’t a hundred men, it was ten. In the third, no one was killed. There was some altercation back and forth, after which they left and made way for us.”

“They just made way. Do you expect me to believe that, Outworlders?” demanded Mistress Tisalver belligerently.

Seldon sighed. At the slightest stress, human beings seemed to divide themselves into antagonistic groups. He said, “Well, I grant you one of them was cut a little. Not seriously.”

“And you weren’t hurt at all?” said Tisalver. The admiration in his voice was more marked.

“Not a scratch,” said Seldon. “Mistress Venabili handles two knives excellently well.”

“I dare say,” said Mistress Tisalver, her eyes dropping to Dors’s belt, “and that’s not what I want to have going on here.”

Dors said sternly, “As long as no one attacks us here, that’s what you won’t have here.”

“But on account of you,” said Mistress Tisalver, “we have trash from the street standing at the doorway.”

“My love,” said Tisalver soothingly, “let us not anger—”

“Why?” spat his wife with contempt. “Are you afraid of her knives? I would like to see her use them here.”

“I have no intention of using them here,” said Dors with a sniff as loud as any that