Good Omens

that. I was just thinkin' we could dig down, an' you jus' have to go an' warn 'em!"
    "I don't think they'd dig all those tunnels," said Wensleydale doggedly. "It doesn't make any sense. Tibet's hundreds of miles away."
    "Oh, yes. Oh, yes. An' I s'pose you know more about it than Madame Blatvatatatsky?" sniffed Adam.
    "Now, if I was a Tibetan," said Wensleydale, in a reasonable tone of voice, "I'd just dig straight down to the hollow bit in the middle and then run around the inside and dig straight up where I wanted to be."
    They gave this due consideration.
    "You've got to admit that's more sensible than tunnels," said Pepper.
    "Yes, well, I expect that's what they do," said Adam. "They'd be bound to of thought of something as simple as that."
    Brian stared dreamily at the sky, while his finger probed the contents of one ear.
    "Funny, reely," he said. "You spend your whole life goin' to school and learnin' stuff, and they never tell you about stuff like the Bermuda Triangle and UFOs and all these Old Masters running around the inside of the Earth. Why do we have to learn boring stuff when there's all this brilliant stuff we could be learnin', that's what I want to know."
    There was a chorus of agreement.
    Then they went out and played Charles Fort and the Atlantisans versus the Ancient Masters of Tibet, but the Tibetters claimed that using mystic ancient lasers was cheating.
    * * *

        There was a time when witchfinders were respected, although it didn't last very long.
    Matthew Hopkins, for example, the Witchfinder General, found witches all over the east of England in the middle of the seventeenth century, charging each town and village nine pence a witch for every one he discovered.
    That was the trouble. Witchfinders didn't get paid by the hour. Any witchfinder who spent a week examining the local crones and then told the mayor, "Well done, not a pointy hat among the lot of them," would get fulsome thanks, a bowl of soup and a meaningful goodbye.
    So in order to turn a profit Hopkins had to find a remarkable number of witches. This made him more than a little unpopular with the village councils, and he was himself hanged as a witch by an East Anglian village who had sensibly realized that they could cut their overheads by eliminating the middleman.
    It is thought by many that Hopkins was the last Witchfinder General.
    In this they would, strictly speaking, be correct. Possibly not in the way they imagine, however. The Witchfinder Army marched on, just slightly more quietly.
    There is no longer a real Witchfinder General.
    Nor is there a Witchfinder Colonel, a Witchfinder Major, a Witchfinder Captain, or even a Witchfinder Lieutenant (the last one was killed falling out of a very tall tree in Caterham, in 1933, while attempting to get a better view of something he believed was a satanic orgy of the most degenerate persuasion, but was, in fact, the Caterham and Whyteleafe Market Traders' Association annual dinner and dance).
    There is, however, a Witchfinder Sergeant.
    There is also, now, a Witchfinder Private. His name is Newton Pulsifer.
    It was the advertisement that got him, in the Gazette, between a fridge for sale and a litter of not.. exactly dalmatians:
    JOIN THE PROFESSIONALS. PART TIME ASSIS..
    TANT REQUIRED TO COMBAT THE FORCES OF
    DARKNESS. UNIFORM, BASIC TRAINING PRO..
    VIDED. FIELD PROMOTION CERTAIN. BE A
    MAN!
    In his lunch hour he phoned the number at the bottom of the ad. A woman answered.
    "Hello," he began, tentatively. "I saw your advert."
    "Which one, love?"
    "Er, the one in the paper."
    "Right, love. Well, Madame Tracy Draws Aside the Veil every afternoon except Thursdays. Parties welcome. When would you be wanting to Explore the Mysteries, love?"
    Newton hesitated. "The advert says 'Join the Professionals,' " he said. "It didn't mention Madame Tracy."
    "That'll be Mister Shadwell you'll be wanting, then. Just a sec, I'll see if he's in."
    Later, when he was on nodding terms with Madame Tracy, Newt learned that if he had mentioned the other ad, the one in the magazine, Madame Tracy would have been available for strict discipline and intimate massage every evening except Thursdays. There was yet another ad in a phone box somewhere. When, much later, Newt asked her what this one involved, she said "Thursdays." Eventually there