The Wit & Wisdom of Discworld - By Terry Pratchett Page 0,86

for a moment, shook his head, and shut the door.

Paragraph 4 said: If Trapped by Fire, Endeavour to Escape. Do Not Open Doors If Warm. Do Not Use Stairs If Burning. If No Exit Presents Itself Remain Calm and Await a) Rescue or b) Death.

This seemed to cover it.

*

… Anoia, a minor goddess of Things That Stick In Drawers. Often, but not uniquely, a ladle, but sometimes a metal spatula or, rarely, a mechanical egg-whisk that nobody in the house admits to ever buying. The desperate mad rattling and cries of ‘How can it close on the damn thing but not open with it? Who bought this? Do we ever use it?’ is as praise unto Anoia. She also eats corkscrews.

*

Ankh-Morpork never slept; the city never did more than doze, and would wake up around 3 a.m. for a glass of water.

Ridcully practised the First Available Surface method of filing.

‘Was there something else, Mr Stibbons?’

Ponder looked at his clipboard. ‘There’s a polite letter from Lord Vetinari asking on behalf of the city whether the University might consider including in its intake, oh, twenty-five per cent of less able students, sir?’

‘Can’t have a bunch of grocers and butchers telling a university how to run itself, Stibbons!’ Ridcully said firmly. ‘Thank them for their interest and tell them we’ll continue to take one hundred per cent of complete and utter dullards, as usual. Take ‘em in dull, turn ‘em out sparklin’, that’s always been the UU way!’

*

If there’s one thing a wizard hates, it’s having to wait while the person in front of them is in two minds about coleslaw. It’s a salad bar, they say, it’s got the kind of stuff salad bars have, if it was surprising it wouldn’t be a salad bar, you’re not here to look at it. What do you expect to find? Rhino chunks? Pickled coelacanth?

The Lecturer in Recent Runes ladled more bacon bits into his salad bowl, having artfully constructed buttresses of celery and breastworks of cabbage to increase its depth five times.

*

‘The Grand Trunk will remain closed in the interim,’ said Lord Vetinari.

‘It’s private property!’ Greenham burst out.

‘Tyrant, remember,’ said Vetinari.

See a pin and pick it up, and all day long you’ll have a pin.

KOOM Valley? That was where the trolls ambushed the dwarfs, or the dwarfs ambushed the trolls. It was far away. It was a long time ago.

But if he doesn’t solve the murder of just one dwarf, Commander Sam? Vimes of Ankfe-Morpork City Watch is going to see it fought again, right outside his office.

With his beloved Watch crumbling around him and war-drums sounding, he rnust unravel every clue, outwit every assassin and brave any darkness to find the solution. And darkness is following him.

Oh … and at six o’clock every day, without fail, with no excuses, he rnust go home to read Where’s My Cow?, with all the right farmyard noises, to his little boy.

There are some things you have to do.

Vimes is chatting to his butler:

‘Tell me, Willikins, did you fight much when you were a kid? Were you in a gang or anything?’

‘I was privileged to belong to the Shamlegger Street Rude Boys, sir,’ said the butler.

‘Really?’ said Vimes, genuinely impressed. ‘They were pretty tough nuts, as I recall.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ said Willikins smoothly. ‘I pride myself I used to give somewhat more than I got if we needed to discuss the vexed area of turf issues with the young men from Rope Street. Stevedore’s hooks were their weapon of choice, as I recall.’

‘And yours … ?’ said Vimes, agog.

‘A cap-brim sewn with sharpened pennies, sir.’

‘Ye gods, man! You could put someone’s eye out with something like that.’

‘With care, sir, yes,’ said Willikins, meticulously folding a towel.

*

Vimes knew all the arguments for having different species in the Watch. They were good arguments. Some of the arguments against them were bad arguments. There were trolls in the Watch, plenty of dwarfs, one werewolf, three golems, an Igor and, not least, Corporal Nobbst† …

*

Fred Colon was not the greatest gift to policing. He was slow, stolid and not very imaginative. But he’d plodded his way around the streets for so long that he’d left a groove and somewhere inside that stupid fat head was something very smart, which sniffed the wind and heard the buzz and read the writing on the wall, admittedly doing the last bit with its lips moving.

*

To look at Fred Colon, you’d see a man who might well, if he fell over a cliff, have to