Feet of Clay

strolled away. “Some rats et some poison somewhere and he got them. What’re we supposed to do about it? Poisonin’ rats ain’t illegal.”
    Colon scratched his chin. “I think we could be in a bit of trouble, Nobby,” he said. “I mean, everyone’s been bustling around detectoring and we’d could end up looking a right couple of noddies. I mean, do you want to go back to the Yard and say we talked to Wee Mad Arthur and he said it wasn’t him, end of story? We’re humans, right? Well, I am and I know you probably are—and we’re definitely bringing up the rear around here. I’m telling you, this ain’t my Watch any more, Nobby. Trolls, dwarfs, gargoyles…I’ve nothing against them, you know me, but I’m looking forward to my little farm with chickens round the door. And I wouldn’t mind goin’ out with something to be proud of.”
    “Well, what do you want us to do? Knock on every door round the cattle market and ask ’em if they’ve got any arsenic in the place?”
    “Yep,” said Colon. “Walk and talk. That’s what Vimes always says.”
    “There’s hundreds of ’em! Anyway, they’d say no.”
    “Right, but we got to arsk . ’T’aint like it used to be, Nobby. This is modern policing. Detectoring. These days, we got to get results. I mean, the Watch is getting bigger. I don’t mind ole Detritus bein’ a sergeant—he’s not bad when you get to know him—but one of these days it could be a dwarf giving out orders, Nobby. It’s all right for me ’cos I’ll be out on my farm—”
    “Nailin’ chickens round the door,” said Nobby.
    “But you’ve got your future to think about. An’, the way things are going, maybe the Watch’ll be looking for another captain. It’d be a right bugger if he turned out to have a name like Stronginthearm, eh, or Shale. So you’d better look smart.”
    “ You never wanted to be a captain, Fred?”
    “Me? A hofficer? I have my pride, Nobby. I’ve nothing against hofficering for them as is called to it, but it’s not for the likes of me. My place is with the common man.”
    “I wish mine was,” said Nobby gloomily. “Look what was in my pigeonhole this morning.”
    He handed the sergeant a square of card, with gold edging. “‘Lady Selachii will be At Home this P.M. from five onwards, and requests the pleasure of the company of Lord de Nobbes,’” he read.
    “Oh.”
    “I’ve heard about these rich ole women,” said Nobby, dejectedly. “I reckon she wants me to be a giggle-low, is that right?”
    “Nah, nah,” said the Sergeant, looking at passion’s most unlikely plaything. “I know this stuff from my uncle. ‘At Home’ is like a bit of a drinks do. It’s where all you nobs hob-nob, Nobby. You just drink and scoff and talk about literachoor and the arts.”
    “I haven’t got any posh clothes,” said Nobby.
    “Ah, that’s where you score, Nobby,” said Colon. “Uniforms is OK. Adds a bit of tone, in fact. Especially if you look dashing,” he said, ignoring the evidence that Nobby was, in fact, merely runny.
    “Is that a fact?” said Nobby, brightening up a bit. “I’ve got a lot more of ’em invites, too,” he said. “Posh cards what look like they’ve been nibbled along the edges with gold teeth. Dinners, balls, all kinds of stuff.”
    Colon looked down at his friend. A strange and yet persuasive thought crept into his mind. “We-ell,” he said, “it’s the end of the social Season, see? Time’s running out.”
    “What for?”
    “We-ell…could be all them posh women want to marry you off to their daughters who’re in Season…”
    “What?”
    “Nothing beats an earl except a duke, and we haven’t got one of them. And we ain’t got a king, neither. The Earl of Ankh would be what they calls a social catch.” Yes, it was easier if he said it to himself like that. If you substituted “Nobby Nobbs” for “Earl of Ankh” it didn’t work. But it did work when you just said “Earl of Ankh.” There’d be many women who’d be happy to be the mother-in-law of the Earl of Ankh even if it meant having Nobby Nobbs into the bargain.
    Well, a few, anyway.
    Nobby’s eyes gleamed. “Never thought of that,” he said. “And some of these girls have a bit of cash, too?”
    “More’n you, Nobby.”
    “And of course I owes it to my posterity to see that the line of Nobbses doesn’t die out,” Nobby added, thoughtfully.
    Colon beamed at him with the rather worried expression of a mad doctor who