because lots of other people would happily admit it for him.
There were such things as dwarf gods. Dwarfs were not a naturally religious species, but in a world where pit props could crack without warning and pockets of fire damp could suddenly explode they’d seen the need for gods as the sort of supernatural equivalent of a hard hat. Besides, when you hit your thumb with an eight-pound hammer it’s nice to be able to blaspheme. It takes a very special and strong-minded kind of atheist to jump up and down with their hand clasped under their other armpit and shout, ‘Oh, random-fluctuations-in-the-space-time-con-tinuum!’ or ‘Aaargh, primitive-and-outmoded-concept on a crutch!’
No clowns were funny.
That was the whole purpose of a clown. People laughed at clowns, but only out of nervousness. The point of clowns was that, after watching them, anything else that happened seemed enjoyable. It was nice to know there was someone worse off than you.
Three and a half minutes after waking up, Captain Samuel Vimes, Night Watch, staggered up the last few steps on to the roof of the city’s opera house, gasped for breath and threw up allegro ma non troppo.
*
He didn’t know much about gargoyles. Carrot had said something once about how marvellous it was, an urban troll species that had evolved a symbiotic relationship with gutters, and he had admired the way they funnelled run-off water into their ears and out through fine sieves in their mouths. You didn’t get many birds nesting on buildings colonized by gargoyles.
*
Vimes snorted. I grew up here, he thought, and when I walk down the street everyone says, ‘Who’s that glum bugger?’ Carrot’s been here a few months and everyone knows him. And he knows everyone. Everyone likes him. I’d be annoyed about that, if only he wasn’t so likeable.
*
‘I’d like a couple of eggs,’ said Vimes, ‘with the yolks real hard but the whites so runny that they drip like treacle. And I want bacon, that special bacon all covered with bony nodules and dangling bits of fat. And a slice of fried bread. The kind that makes your arteries go clang just by looking at it.’
‘Tough order,’ said Harga.
‘You managed it yesterday.’
*
Probably no other world in the multiverse has warehouses for things which only exist in potentia, but the pork futures warehouse in Ankh-Morpork is a product of the Patrician’s rules about baseless metaphors, the literal-mindedness of citizens who assume that everything must exist somewhere, and the general thinness of the fabric of reality around Ankh, which is so thin that it’s as thin as a very thin thing. The net result is that trading in pork futures - in pork that doesn’t exist yet - led to the building of the warehouse to store it in until it does.
*
C. M. O. T. Dibbler had a number of bad points, but species prejudice was not one of them. He liked anyone who had money, regardless of the colour and shape of the hand that was proffering it. For Dibbler believed in a world where a sapient creature could walk tall, breathe free, pursue life, liberty and happiness, and step out towards the bright new dawn. If they could be persuaded to gobble something off Dibbler’s hot-food tray at the same time, this was all to the good.
*
Leonard of Quirm was not all that old. He was one of those people who started looking venerable around the age of thirty, and would probably still look about the same at the age of ninety. He wasn’t exactly bald, either. His head had just grown up through his hair, rising like a mighty rock dome through heavy forest.
*
‘This city is full of clever men,’ said the Patrician …’They never think. They do things like open the Three Jolly Luck Take-Away Fish Bar on the site of the old temple in Dagon Street on the night of the winter solstice when it also happens to be a full moon.’
*
‘Captain Vimes?’ said Carrot, waving a hand in front of his eyes. There was no response.
‘How much has he had?’
‘Two nips of whiskey, that’s all.’
‘That shouldn’t do this to him, even on an empty stomach,’ said Carrot.
Angua pointed at the neck of a bottle protruding from Vimes’s pocket.
‘I don’t think he’s been drinking on an empty stomach,’ she said. ‘I think he put some alcohol in it first.’
*
‘Oh, no,’ said Sergeant Colon. ‘He’s had a whole bottle!’
Angua picked out the bottle and looked at the label.
‘C. M. O. T Dibbler’s Genuine Authentic Soggy Mountain Dew,’