Feet of Clay

it,” said Nobby helpfully.
    “But his background…”
    “He was raised by dwarfs,” said Nobby. He waved his brandy glass at a waiter. “Same again, mister.”
    “I shouldn’t think dwarfs could raise anyone very high,” said another chair. There was a hint of laughter.
    “Rumors and folklore,” someone murmured.
    “This is a large and busy and above all complex city. I’m afraid that having a sword and a birthmark are not much in the way of qualifications. We would need a king from a lineage that is used to command.”
    “Like yours, my lord.”
    There was a sucking, draining noise as Nobby attacked the fresh glass of brandy. “Oh, I’m used to command, all right,”’ he said, lowering the glass. “People are always orderin’ me around.”
    “We would need a king who had the support of the great families and major guilds of the city.”
    “People like Carrot,” said Nobby.
    “Oh, the people… ”
    “Anyway, whoever got the job’d have his work cut out,” said Nobby. “Ole Vetinari’s always pushin’ paper. What kinda fun is that? ’S no life, sittin’ up all hours, worryin’, never a moment to yerself.” He held out the empty glass. “Same again, my old mate. Fill it right up this time, eh? No sense in havin’ a great big glass and only sloshing a bit in the bottom, is there?”
    “Many people prefer to savor the bouquet,” said a quietly horrified chair. “They enjoy sniffing it.”
    Nobby looked at his glass with the red-veined eyes of one who’d heard rumors about what the upper crust got up to “Nah,” he said. “I’ll go on stickin’ it in my mouth, if it’s all the same to you.”
    “If we may get to the point ,” said another chair, “a king would not have to spend every moment running the city. He would of course have people to do that. Advisors. Counselors. People of experience.”
    “So what’d he have to do?” said Nobby.
    “He’d have to reign,” said a chair.
    “Wave.”
    “Preside at banquets.”
    “Sign things.”
    “Guzzle good brandy disgustingly.”
    “ Reign .”
    “Sounds like a good job to me,” said Nobby. “All right for some, eh?”
    “Of course, a king would have to be someone who could recognize a hint if it was dropped on his head from a great height,” said a speaker sharply, but the other chairs shushed him into silence.
    Nobby managed to find his mouth after several goes and took another long pull at his cigar. “Seems to me,” he said, “seems to me , what you want to do is find some nob with time on his hands and say, ‘Yo, it’s your lucky day. Let’s see you wave that hand.’”
    “Ah! That’s a good idea! Does any name cross your mind, my lord? Have a drop more brandy.”
    “Why, thanks, you’re a toff. O’ course, so ’m I, eh? That’s right, flunky, all the way to the top. No, can’t think of anyone that fits the bill.”
    “In fact, my lord, we were indeed thinking of offering the crown to you—”
    Nobby’s eyes bulged. And then his cheek bulged.
    It is not a good idea to spray finest brandy across the room, especially when your lighted cigar is in the way. The flame hit the far wall, where it left a perfect chrysanthemum of scorched woodwork, while in accordance with a fundamental rule of physics Nobby’s chair screamed back on its castors and thudded into the door.
    “King?” Nobby coughed, and then they had to slap him on the back until he got his breath again. “King?” he wheezed. “And have Mr. Vimes cut me head off?”
    “All the brandy you can drink, my lord,” said a wheedling voice.
    “’S no good if you ain’t got a throat for it to go down!”
    “What’re you talking about?”
    “Mr. Vimes’d go spare! He’d go spare! ”
    “Good heavens, man—”
    “My lord,” someone corrected.
    “My lord, I mean—when you’re king you can tell that wretched Sir Samuel what to do. You’ll be, as you would call it, ‘the boss.’ You could—”
    “Tell ole Stoneface what to do?” said Nobby.
    “That’s right!”
    “I’d be a king and tell ole Stoneface what to do?” said Nobby.
    “Yes!”
    Nobby stared into the smoky gloom.
    “He’d go spare! ”
    “Listen, you silly little man—”
    “ My lord —”
    “You silly little lord, you’d be able to have him executed if you wished!”
    “I couldn’t do that!”
    “Why not?”
    “He’d go spare!”
    “The man calls himself an officer of the law, and whose law does he listen to, eh? Where does his law come