at about the time albert was in the mended drum arguing with the landlord over a yellowing bar tab that had been handed down carefully from father to son through one regicide , three civil wars , sixty-one major fires , four hundred and ninety robberies and more than fifteen thousand barroom brawls to record the fact that alberto malich still owed the management three copper pieces plus interest currently standing at the contents of most of the disc 's larger strongrooms , which proved once again that an ankhian merchant with an unpaid bill has the kind of memory that would make an elephant blink ... at about this time , binky was leaving a vapour trail in skies above the great mysterious continent of klatch .