Jingo

habits. This is a respectable house,” she added, in defiance of evidence so far.
    “We ought to see the room first,” said Colon.
    “Oh, the choosy sort, eh?”
    She led them upstairs.
    The room vacated so terminally by Ossie was small and bare. A few items of clothing hung on nails in the wall, and a heap of wrappers and greasy bags indicated that Ossie had been a man who ate, as it were, off the street.
    “Whose is this stuff?” said Sergeant Colon.
    “Oh, he’s gone now. I told him he’d be out if he didn’t pay up. I’ll throw it out afore you settle in.”
    “We’ll get rid of it for you,” said Sergeant Colon. He fumbled in his pouch and produced a couple of dollars. “Here you are, Miss—?”
    “ Mrs . Spent,” said Mrs. Spent. She gave them a lopsided look. “Are you both stopping here or what?”
    “Nah, I’ve just come along as his chaperon,” said Colon, giving her a friendly grin. “He has to fight women off when they find out about his sexual magnetism.”
    Mrs. Spent gave the shocked Nobby a sharp look and bustled out of the room.
    “What’d you go and say that for?” said Nobby.
    “It’s got rid of her, hasn’t it?”
    “You were having a go at me, don’t deny it! Just because I’m going through a bit of an emotional wossname, eh?”
    “It was just a joke, Nobby. Just a joke.”
    Nobby peered under the narrow bed.
    “Wow!” he said, all emotional wossnames forgotten.
    “What is it? What is it?” said Colon.
    “It looks like a complete run of Bows and Ammo ! And…” Nobby pulled another stack of badly engraved magazines out into the light, “here’s Warrior of Fortune , look! And Practical Siege Weapons …”
    Colon leafed through page after page of very similar-looking people holding very similar weapons of personal destruction.
    “You got to be a bit odd to sit around all day reading this kind of thing,” he said.
    “Yeah,” said Nobby. “Here, don’t put that one back, that’s last August’s issue, I ain’t got that one. Hang on, there’s a box right at the back…”
    He wriggled out, towing a small box with him. It was locked, but the cheap metal gave way when he accidentally levered at the lid.
    Silver coins gleamed. Lots and lots of them.
    “Whoops…” he muttered. “We’re in trouble now…”
    “That’s Klatchian money, that is!” said Colon. “Sometimes people slip you one instead of a half-dollar in your change. Look, there’s all curly writing on them!”
    “We’re in big trouble,” said Nobby.
    “No, no, no, this is a Clue what we have found by patient detectoring,” said Sergeant Colon. “And it’s going to be a feather in our caps and no mistake when Mister Vimes hears about it!”
    “How much do you reckon there is?”
    “Got to be hundreds and hundreds of dollars’ worth,” said Colon. “And that’s a lot of money to a Klatchian. You can probably live like a king for a year on a dollar, in Klatch.”
    “It wasn’t very patient detectoring,” said Nobby doubtfully. “All I did was look under the bed.”
    “Ah, but that’s because you is trained,” said Colon. “Your basic civilian wouldn’t think of that, right? Ah, it all begins to make sense!”
    “Does it? Why would the Klatchians give him money to shoot a Klatchian?” said Nobby.
    Colon tapped the side of his nose. “ Politics ,” he said.
    “Ah, politics ,” said Nobby. “Ah, well, politics . I see. Politics . Right. So why?”
    “Aha,” said Colon again, tapping the other side of his nose.
    “Why’re you picking your nose, sarge?”
    “I’m tapping it,” said Colon severely. “That’s to show I’m in the know.”
    “In the nose,” said Nobby cheerfully.
    “It’s just the sort of underhand cunning thing they’d do,” said Colon.
    “Payin’ us to kill them?” said Nobby.
    “Ah, you see, some Klatchian nob gets topped here , and then they can send a snotty note saying, ‘You killed our big nob, you foreign nephews of dogs, this means war!’ See? A perfect excuse.”
    “Do you need an excuse to have a war?” said Nobby. “I mean, who for? Can’t you just say, ‘You got lots of cash and land but I’ve got a big sword so divvy up right now, chop chop?’ That’s what I ’d do,” said Corporal Nobbs, military strategist. “And I wouldn’t even say that until after I’d attacked.”
    “Ah, but that’s ’cos you don’t know about politics,” said Colon. “You can’t do that stuff anymore. Mark my words, this