Roby had not gone to fetch glue, and had not even lingered long enough to hear the question, for her goal currently was the commissar's butter, and with him fatally distracted by surgery, there was no one to guard the locker room, and so she made for it in all haste—perhaps too much haste, for as she strode across the street, jaywalking profoundly and heedless of the Ampelmännchen, a mansion sped up the street right at her, and by rights she should have become a puddle, but as luck would have it, the mansion's front windows were open, and rather than run her down it scooped her up, and then she was stood in the drawing room in front of all the lords and ladies, who gawked at her, and said things such as, “My word,” and, “How dreadful!” Roby was not embarrassed, briefly perplexed, and unomnipresent.

“Egads!” said Roby. “Well—will not someone give me some butter?”

The fanciest of the fancy lords and ladies gathered about the fireplace in the drawing room was Lord Shirechester, who was the lord of the manor, and the baron of something or other, and it was his party, the purpose of which was for he, as an eligible bachelor, to find one of the fine ladies of the realm to become his wife. And so when he espied Roby, his gaze was immediately fixated on her, and she stole his attention utterly. Never before had the image of a person so striking and so utterly unique entered any his eyeballs.

“Who is this absolute creature?” said Lord Shirechester. “I must have her,” he continued, “removed at once, so kindly throw her out of the house and into an outhouse! I told you all to keep the windows rolled up while we're driving.”

All the guards showed up with bows and arrows and began shooting at Roby. Seeing the direction all the arrows were pointed, she assumed that they indicated the location of the butter storage facility—but then she thought that was what they wanted her to think, and, since it must be a trick, the butter must be elsewhere, so there she went. The arrows, having done this odd job in scattering her, returned to their normal careers as lifeguards at the gene pool.

Once Roby arrived at the elsewhere—who knows what mansion rooms are called or for, they're all just drawing rooms, lounges, salons; just places to be and have things—she was immediately confronted by a soap carver and a freelance prime minister, fury in their faces, powder in their wigs, the ones that got away in their dreams.

“Well,” said the soap carver, “pick a side!”

“What!” said Roby. “Me?”

“No,” said the freelance prime minister, “not yourself—I or he. You can't be on your own side!”

“Why not?” said Roby.

“The girl's philosophy amends us not! We are no closer to settling the duel,” said the soap carver.

“I know not over what you duel,” said Roby, “but I want for butter.”

“Oh, who doesn't these days?” said the soap carver.

Now, Roby meant to make her way to the butter, but was blocked by the duelists, who would not be satisfied until she chose a victor, and so she was quite stymied. In seeking an escape, she found nothing of the sort, and considered the solution to the quandary with tradition.

“I am hale of heart and sure of aim,” said the soap carver.

“I am sharp of mind and firm of will,” said the freelance prime minister.

“I am Roby Lopkit,” said Roby. “If you would like to share names and be friended, then perhaps your rivalness can be ended, but until that time, if you are so inclined, please tell me from where the butter is vended!”

The soap carver and the prime minister eyed one another and eared Roby, then vice versa, then versa vice, until a thorough examination had been completed. Roby saw that they were both butterless, and she yearned for egress and feared the speed of Traycup's and Ben Garment's blimp would whisk them far away from her, so that Traycup could complete his own voyage with haste, and that was a fine thing for him, but, she had begun a journey of togetherment, and meant to complete the same. And so produced a plot, for her brain was made of jade.

“It seems I will not see a thimbleful of butter until the battle of you and you is won,” she said. “And so I am bewoed to participate. Therefore—I have made my choice—but I will not say it aloud, and you must make the figure of its state each yourselves.” This, she felt, was a fine stratagem.

“Surely, she chooses me,” said the soap carver, “for I am robust.”

“Surely, she chooses me,” said the freelance prime minister, “for I am sawdust.”

“She chooses me,” said the soap carver, “because I am known to the chess-makers and to the billiard balls!”

“She chooses me,” said the freelance prime minister, “because I am known to a dozen of the highest quality muffins, and am as gainly as an insect!”

“It is I,” declared the soap carver, “for my feet don't fail me now, and forget-me-nots forget me not!”

“It is I,” declawed the freelance prime minister, “for I have an eye for an eye and in truth a tooth for a tooth, and I've been on a fair few busses in my time, too!”

At last, Lord Shirechester burst through the door, having scaled the one hundred steps in the stairway above the dining room at no small expense, for the steps were of finely sculpted filigree, and each stair demanded a brand new silk sock in its stepping. In one of the lord's hands was a great brand of fire, and in his eyes was a suspicion of accounting errors.

“Aha!” was the baron's triumphant declaration. “As foretold—you are returned, as accomplices are wont to follow their ringleader into the viper's den. Lo, know I am finer than a viper, I am a real adder, at least! For behold!” And the baron cast off his cloak and displayed his array of scales, proving his lineage as the maestro of serpents, and he spread his wings, and darkness fell upon the chamber, all lost in shadow but the glowing brand of fire.

“The fiend brings forth its reekish form!” said the soap carver. He drew a holy sword made of ice and clouds, and held it aloft.

“Then, the time is ripe to strike it down!” said the freelance prime minister. He drew a holy sword made of smoke and water, and held it aloft.

Roby did not draw a sword. Instead she sat down and ate a big pancake.

The respectable gentlemen threw themselves into a normal battle, swords clashing with magic fireballs, rattling snake-tails whipping about, furniture thrown overhand at one another's heads, and many oaths cast at loathsome opponents. But even the combined might of the soap carver and the freelance prime minister was not enough to defeat the lord of the manor. Lord Shirechester grew one hundred arms and seized them both, and sealed them up in barrels, and set them down in the wine cellar to rot slowly and melt into wine for the next few decades, and then he turned again to Roby.

“Ah, the shambling witch,” he said. “You who espies my house as a place for plying her dark craft, know you this: my soul is sacrosanct, and your dark master shall not have his hands upon it, not this day nor any other!”

“I want not your soul, you can keep it,” said Roby. “I only wish to finish my meal in peace. But—ah!—how dry the taste. Behold! For my pancake wants for a pad of butter, which, alas, your house lacks.”

“Fool! Your last meal shall be adorned!” said Lord Shirechester. “Let it not be said I am not professional in richery! Now, come. There is butter aplenty, and the help will provide said butter in the kitchen.”

Now, Lord Shirechester had this simple plot in his shale mind: to have her thrown out the back door even as the manor sped down the highway, and see her become not more than a smear on the pavement and a delay in the evening commute. And so he led Roby back to the drawing room, for the lord of the house had no knowing of where the kitchen was, and he called upon the butlers and maids and men-at-arms and grooms to take Roby to that chamber, and in secret he followed the lot of them. The head chef gladly gave Roby a whole stick of butter. Then the lord leapt from the shadows and struck at her with his flaming brand—but Roby gave him hardly a notice.

There was then a great deal of shouting, and the pantries flew open and out came a cheerful army of mice and birds—all well-meaning vermin, surely—and all were dressed in their holiday best, with too many frills and even more lace, because these vermin were dressed to the nines—hell, they were dressed to the tens. And, of course, they were singing the official holiday song—the one everyone sings, but no one realizes it actually has a hundred official verses, and each of them sang their favorite, so it became a cacophony. Now, the kitchen staff, in defiance of the joyless lord of the manor, naturally celebrated every holiday they could, and many they couldn't, and so they broke into song as well, and even Roby joined them—but she didn't know any words, so she just went, “La la la!” the whole time—and they all spun around the lord until they were a blur, and he knew not where to strike, but strike he must, else what was the point of the flaming brand? So he commanded the firebrand to find its mark and hurled it, and in the blur of everyone in costume and singing, flashing colors and booming song, a swirling whirl of holiday delight, the one person the firebrand could put an identity to, the one target standing still long enough to lock on, was Lord Shirechester himself, and so it struck him and killed him.

All the singers stopped, and they looked down at the dead lord.

“Who will be our master now?” they said. Well, except for the mice and birds, because they were drunk and singing holiday songs, and had no master anyhow, so they continued singing, but a coppersmith pushed them into a granary and told them to hush and read Twain.

“Poor Lord Shirechester,” said Roby.

“Aha!” said the kitchen staff, for they were simple folk, and saying a lord's name was a frightful prospect. “You know his name!”

“Indeed,” said Roby, “for we are equals, and before his fall, he did bequeath to me the manor hall! Call me master and you shall find I am no bastard, for I am kind, and I shall see that each of thee is paid much and more and not grow poor. But first I have a command, for the house drives unmanned, so please see it stopped ere a tire is popped, or the rear gear sheared, I fear, or a tire or wire caught afire for a while!”

And so it was that Roby became the new Lady Shirechester, master of the manor, baroness of something, probably, and as long as no one questioned the legality of the situation, everything was on the up-and-up, and there were no concerns to be had. Moreover, she finally had some butter.

Now, how to get in touch with Traycup?

Meanwhile, Traycup had seen almost none of this but the initial scoopage, and so had a concern for his friend. The blimp, at Ben Garment's generous urging, was flying higher and farther, free as they were at last from the depths of the commissar's purse.

“Fly, you bloated bird!” said Ben Garment. “Call the Earth 'Master' no more! Now, this is a real heist, if I say so, which I've done!”

“Ben Garment,” said Traycup, “we've to rescue dear Roby, for she's been enmansioned, I fear.”

“Tut! She's a grown lass, and can find her own route. This is the nature of life, after all.”

“It's so,” said Traycup, “and yet, momentarily, we're set on tripping together—we're for Oopertreepia! Let's go pluck her from her woes and blimp onward together!”

“Alas,” said Ben Garment, “there is not time for such delayment. Oopertreepia runs on a tight schedule, and won't be open for much longer, so if any are set to arrive, you ought to double and triple your haste!”

“It is indeed vital to report that sight I saw,” said Traycup, “yet I confess that poor Roby Lopkit is doomed in that city without an aider!”

“And you fancy yourself that same aider? How facetious!”

“She fled and was scooped by a house—a house most unsavory in its look! And how the house races through the town! Only a mansion on the finest of ball bearings might make such a trip—so the threat is plain!”

“The threat is plane,” corrected Ben Garment.

“You again?” screamed the 747, and then they crashed.