Guards! Guards!

daughter?”
    Vimes felt, in an odd way, that he ought to support the lord of the city. “He’s got a little dog that he’s very fond of,” he said helpfully.
    “Bleeding disgusting, not even having a daughter,” said one of the hunters. “And what’s fifty thousand dollars these days? You spend that much in nets.”
    “S’right,” said another. “People think it’s a fortune, but they don’t reckon on, well, it’s not pensionable, there’s all the medical expenses, you’ve got to buy and maintain your own gear—”
    “—wear and tear on virgins—” nodded a small fat hunter.
    “Yeah, and then there’s…what?”
    “My speciality is unicorns,” the hunter explained, with an embarrassed smile.
    “Oh, right.” The first speaker looked like someone who’d always been dying to ask the question. “I thought they were very rare these days.”
    “You’re right there. You don’t see many unicorns, either,” said the unicorn hunter. Vimes got the impression that, in his whole life, this was his only joke.
    “Yeah, well. Times are hard,” said the first speaker sharply.
    “Monsters are getting more uppity, too,” said another. “I heard where this guy, he killed this monster in this lake, no problem, stuck its arm up over the door—”
    “Pour encourjay lays ortras,” said one of the listeners.
    “Right, and you know what? Its mum come and complained. Its actual mum come right down to the hall next day and complained . Actually complained . That’s the respect you get.”
    “The females are always the worst,” said another hunter gloomily. “I knew this cross-eyed gorgon once, oh, she was a terror. Kept turning her own nose to stone.”
    “It’s our arses on the line every time,” said the intellectual. “I mean, I wish I had a dollar for every horse I’ve had eaten out from underneath me.”
    “Right. Fifty thousand dollars? He can stuff it.”
    “Yeah.”
    “Right. Cheapskate.”
    “Let’s go and have a drink.”
    “Right.”
    They nodded in righteous agreement and strode off toward the Mended Drum, except for the intellectual, who sidled uneasily back to Vimes.
    “What sort of dog?” he said.
    “What?” said Vimes.
    “I said, what sort of dog?”
    “A small wire-haired terrier, I think,” said Vimes.
    The hunter thought about this for some time. “Nah,” he said eventually, and hurried off after the others.
    “He’s got an aunt in Pseudopolis, I believe,” Vimes called after him.
    There was no response. The captain of the Watch shrugged, and carried on through the throng to the Patrician’s palace…

    …where the Patrician was having a difficult lunchtime.
    “Gentlemen!” he snapped. “I really don’t see what else there is to do!”
    The assembled civic leaders muttered among themselves.
    “At times like this it’s traditional that a hero comes forth,” said the President of the Guild of Assassins. “A dragon slayer. Where is he, that’s what I want to know? Why aren’t our schools turning out young people with the kind of skills society needs?”
    “Fifty thousand dollars doesn’t sound much,” said the Chairman of the Guild of Thieves.
    “It may not be much to you, my dear sir, but it is all the city can afford,” said the Patrician firmly.
    “If it doesn’t afford anymore than that I don’t think there’ll be a city for long,” said the thief.
    “And what about trade?” said the representative of the Guild of Merchants. “People aren’t going to sail here with a cargo of rare comestibles just to have it incinerated, are they?”
    “Gentlemen! Gentlemen!” The Patrician raised his hands in a conciliatory fashion. “It seems to me,” he went on, taking advantage of the brief pause, “that what we have here is a strictly magical phenomenon. I would like to hear from our learned friend on this point. Hmm?”
    Someone nudged the Archchancellor of Unseen University, who had nodded off.
    “Eh? What?” said the wizard, startled into wakefulness.
    “We were wondering,” said the Patrician loudly, “what you were intending to do about this dragon of yours?”
    The Archchancellor was old, but a lifetime of survival in the world of competitive wizardry and the byzantine politics of Unseen University meant that he could whip up a defensive argument in a split second. You didn’t remain Archchancellor for long if you let that sort of ingenuous remark whizz past your ear.
    “ My dragon?” he said.
    “It’s well known that