The Wit & Wisdom of Discworld - By Terry Pratchett Page 0,92

that it had been made so long ago that the black deeds which had originally filled the coffers were now historically irrelevant. Funny, that: a brigand for a father was something you kept quiet about, but a slave-taking pirate for a great-great-great-grandfather was something to boast of over the port. Time turned the evil bastards into rogues, and rogue was a word with a twinkle in its eye and nothing to be ashamed of.

*

‘I did not become ruler of Ankh-Morpork by understanding the city. Like banking, the city is depressingly easy to understand. I have remained ruler by getting the city to understand me.’

The city bleeds, Mr Lipwig, and you are the clot I need..

The lady in the boardroom was certainly an attractive woman, but since she worked for the Times Moist felt unable to award her total ladylike status. Ladies didn’t fiendishly quote exactly what you said but didn’t exactly mean, or hit you around the ear with unexpectedly difficult questions. Well, come to think of it, they did, quite often, but she got paid for it.

*

‘The world is full of things worth more than gold. But we dig the damn stuff up and then bury it in a different hole. Where’s the sense in that? What are we, magpies? Good heavens, potatoes are worth more than gold!’

‘Surely not!’

‘If you were shipwrecked on a desert island, what would you prefer, a bag of potatoes or a bag of gold?’

‘Yes, but a desert island isn’t Ankh-Morpork!’

‘And that proves gold is only valuable because we agree it is, right? It’s just a dream. But a potato is always worth a potato, anywhere. A knob of butter and a pinch of salt and you’ve got a meal, anywhere. Bury gold in the ground and you’ll be worrying about thieves for ever. Bury a potato and in due season you could be looking at a dividend of a thousand per cent.’

*

‘Vetinari has a dog?’

‘Had. Wuffles. Died some time ago. There’s a little grave in the Palace grounds. He goes there alone once a week and puts a dog biscuit on it.’

‘Vetinari does that?’

‘Yes.’

‘Vetinari the cool, heartless, calculating tyrant?’

‘Indeed.’

*

Don’t let me detain you. What a wonderful phrase Vetinari had devised. The jangling double meaning set up undercurrents of uneasiness in the most innocent of minds. The man had found ways of bloodless tyranny that put the rack to shame.

*

Stamp collecting! It had started on day one, and then ballooned like some huge … thing, running on strange, mad rules. Was there any other field where flaws made things worth more? Would you buy a suit just because one arm was shorter than the other? Or because a bit of spare cloth was still attached?

*

Claud Maximillian Overton Transpire Dibbler, a name bigger than the man himself. Everyone knew C. M. O. T Dibbler. He sold pies and sausages off a tray, usually to people who were the worse for drink who then became the worse for pies.

*

Moist had eaten the odd pork pie and occasional sausage in a bun and that very fact interested him. There was something about the stuff that drove you back for more. There had to be some secret ingredient, or maybe the brain just didn’t believe what the taste buds told it, and wanted to feel once again that flood of hot, greasy, not entirely organic, slightly crunchy substances surfing across the tongue. So you bought another one.

And, it had to be said, there were times when a Dibbler sausage in a bun was just what you wanted. Sad, yet true. Everyone had moments like that. Life brought you so low that for a vital few seconds that charivari of strange greases and worrying textures was your only friend in all the world.

*

The Watch armour fitted like a glove. He’d have preferred it to fit like a helmet and breastplate. It was common knowledge that the Watch’s approach to uniforms was one-size-doesn’t-exactly-fit-anybody and that Commander Vimes disapproved of armour that didn’t have that kicked-by-trolls look. He liked it to make it clear that it had been doing its job.

‘I’m an Igor, thur. We don’t athk quethtionth.’

‘Really? Why not?’

‘I don’t know, thur. I didn’t athk.’

Students, eh? Love ’em or hate ’em, you’re not allowed to hit ’em with a shovel.

‘I’m afraid I have to close the office now, reverend.’ The voice of Ms Houser broke into Cribbins’s dreams …

Ms Houser was standing there, not gloriously naked and pink as so recently featured in the reverie, but in a plain brown coat