The WDA, Pim, and Bim ended up back at the cantina, where the WDA visited the baño and fell asleep there for a time.

When the taxi arrived it was driven by Slim, who had taken on the job for, in Slim’s words, ‘All the fun I can have with passengers.’

Released from the hospital to wander the desert Gim inexplicably met a young woman from a distant land.

Meanwhile Pim HAD divided into Pim and Bim. On the way to the hospital they were about to be joined by an old friend of Pim’s.

Fleeing the city for lack of anyone else to annoy, Slim discovered the new, supple tail grown brittle and tense. As it always was.

Anaesthetized for surgery, slumbering Gim had vague thoughts of being stitched back into the spineless limp patchwork Gim always was.

Not quite sure whom he would find in the hospital, the Well-Dressed Albatross met tailless Gim’s weathered head.

But Slim had concealed scissors and thread. Slim quickly appropriated Gim’s new tail, left Gim’s head on the hospital bed, and fled.

An hour before the WDA left the cantina to assist a tailless friend. Gim visited Slim in the very hospital Gim had been discharged from.

When the bandages came off even the médicos were surprised that Gim’s shards of tail were now integral and robust.