Snuff (40 page)

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The exchange scheme with the Quirm gendarmerie was working very well: they were getting instruction on policing à la Vimes, while the food in the Pseudopolis Yard canteen had been improved out of all recognition by Captain Emile, even though he used far too much avec.

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And thenceforth would be glad to get a gentle second place in almost every domestic decision. Lady Sybil took the view that her darling husband's word was law for the City Watch while, in her own case, it was a polite suggestion to be graciously considered.

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Apart, that is, from the line of artistically naked ladies along its parapets. They were holding urns; urns is art.

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It was tricky; to Vimes all men were equal but, well, obviously a sergeant wasn't as equal as a captain and a captain wasn't as equal as a commander and as for corporal Nobby Nobbs…well, nobody…could be the equal of corporal Nobby Nobbs.

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Metal, in the circumstances, would not be appropriate…or safe.

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Not to mention Blackboard Monitor Vimes, a figure of note in dwarfish society.

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Willikins was an excellent butler and/or gentleman's gentleman when the occasion required it, but in a long career he had also been an enthusiastic street fighter, and knew enough never to turn his back on anybody who could possibly have a weapon on them.

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Later on Vimes pondered Willikins' accurate grasp of the plural noun in the circumstances, but there you were; if someone hung around in houses with lots of books in it, some of it rubbed off just as, come to think of it, it had on Vimes.

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More than once watchmen had found handwritten suicide notes which on careful examination weren't in the right handwriting.

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Saddle pork was invented some time around the Year of the Stoat by Reverend Joseph “Causality” Robinson, rector of All Saints and Three Sinners in the parish of Lower Overhang. As far as can be determined from notes made by his contemporaries, the game may be considered an amalgam of spillikins, halma and brandy. No known rules exist, if, indeed, there ever really were any.

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Sybil had explained to Vimes that in the country one dresses at least a decade earlier than in the city, hence the bustle, and, for Vimes, a pair of breeches: the ancient ones with trap doors front and rear and a slightly distressing smell all over.

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See Dr. Bentley Purchase,
The Vicar Is Coming to Tea and One Hundred and Twenty-seven Other Warnings of Social Embarrassment
(Unseen University Press).

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It was all a mystery to Vimes, who was absolutely sure that it was impossible to tell the difference between a chicken fart and a turkey fart, but there were those who professed to be able to do so, and he was glad that such people had chosen this outlet for their puzzling inclinations rather than, for example, fill their sink with human skulls, collected in the high street.

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Because he wasn't allowed much time talking.

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The fourth Gumption to run the tobacco house and snuff mill felt that his surname lacked prestige, and for some reason chose the name “Bewilderforce”—which did indeed become prestigious owing to the success of his tobacco enterprise, which was extremely well thought of by the gentry and others. And thereafter there was at least one Bewilderforce in every generation of the line (although girls were generally named Bewildred).

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A glint is, in fact, a visual tinkle.

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This is, of course, absolutely true.

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The Colons had survived a long and happy marriage by having as little to do with the other partner as possible. This was achieved by the expedient of his working the night shift when she was working days and vice versa. This was agreed on the basis that anything else would spoil the romance.

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Strictly speaking, the sexuality of any given dwarf remained a secret between him or, as it might be, her, and his, or, as it might be, her mother, until they decided to tell someone else about it, although generally you could work it out by observing dwarfs closely and spotting the ones that were drinking sherry or light white wine. Regrettably, this didn't always work with dwarf policemen, because like all policemen everywhere they would drink anything strong enough to help them forget what they'd to deal with that day.

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According to dwarf lore the universe was written into being by Tak, who also wrote its lores. All writing is sacred to the dwarfs.

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However that might be rendered in a language that at its best sounded like a man jumping up and down on a very large packet of crisps.

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Regrettably, Constable Upshot was overly hopeful: in Ankh-Morpork the mice and the cockroaches had decided to forget their differences and gang up on the humans.

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Which were, in fact, a permanency in any case.

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Wee Mad Arthur was, as a Feegle, a very economical watchman to have, given that, size for size, he ate in a year what human watchmen ate in a week, although it had to be admitted he could drink, size for size, more alcohol in a week than any human watchman could drink in a year.

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The first two being common theft and public indecency.

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A race of freshwater mariners found everywhere in and around the Sto Plains. They are said to be incapable of lying, although this piece of information has been provided by the Zoons themselves, causing, as it were, a philosophical conundrum. Certainly it is maintained that they find the concept of a lie so difficult to understand that the few among them who have mastered the technique are venerated and given high office in Zoon society.

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Technically, the violent surge of water on Old Treachery was written down in technical manuals as a Dam Slam, but anyone who has experienced one learns to swear, hence the subtle change of name.

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Constable Haddock's immediate nickname when he joined the force was Kipper, because policemen's minds worked that way.

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Or three or four, as far as Vimes the landlubber was concerned.

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The sound of the gentle rattle of china cup on china saucer drives away all demons, a little-known fact.

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The Three Disgraces were apparently the daughters of Blind Io (but you know how people talk); they were Nudicia, Pulchritudia and Voluptia.

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That is to say, something bigger than he in fact is, which will turn very nasty if you think you can give this copper in front of you now a seeing-to because you are afloat to the tonsils on beer.

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Or, perhaps, somebody else's.

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For those unfamiliar with them, periwinkles, like cockles and whelks, might be considered the snot of the sea.

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It had been said by someone years before that to see Sybil Ramkin's upholstered bosom rise and fall was to understand the history of empires.