Jingo

room. A lot of it was occupied by a round table covered with a green cloth. There was a crystal ball on the table, not very well covered by a pink knitted lady in a crinoline dress.
    Mrs. Cake motioned Nobby to sit down. He obediently did so. The smell of cabbage drifted through the room.
    “A bloke in the pub told me about you,” Nobby mumbled. “Said you do mediuming.”
    “Would you care to tell me your problem?” said Mrs. Cake. She looked at Nobby again and, in a state of certainty that had nothing to do with precognition and everything to do with observation, added: “That is, which of your problems do you want to know about?”
    Nobby coughed. “Er…it’s a bit…you know…intimate. Affairs of the heart, sort of thing.”
    “Are women involved?” said Mrs. Cake cautiously.
    “Er…I hope so. What else is there?”
    Mrs. Cake visibly relaxed.
    “I just want to know if I’m going to meet any,” Nobby went on.
    “I see.” Mrs. Cake gave a kind of facial shrug. It wasn’t up to her to tell people how to waste their money. “Well, there’s the tenpenny future. That’s what you see. And there’s the ten-dollar future. That’s what you get.”
    “Ten dollars? That’s more’n a week’s pay! I’d better take the tenpenny one.”
    “A very wise choice,” said Mrs. Cake. “Give me your paw.”
    “Hand,” said Nobby.
    “That’s what I said.”
    Mrs. Cake examined Nobby’s outstretched palm while taking care not to touch it.
    “Are you going to moan and roll your eyes and stuff?” said Nobby, a man out to get his tenpenn’orth.
    “I don’t have to take cheek,” said Mrs. Cake, without looking up. “That sort of—”
    She peered closer, and then gave Nobby a sharp look.
    “Have you been playing with this hand?”
    “Pardon?”
    Mrs. Cake whipped the crinoline lady off the crystal and glared into the depths. After a while she shook her head.
    “I don’t know, I’m sure…oh, well.” She cleared her throat and spoke in a more sibylic voice. “Mr. Nobbs, I see you surrounded by dusky ladies in a hot place. Looks a bit foreign to me. They’re laughing and chatting with you…in fact, one of them’s just handed you a drink…”
    “None of ’em are shouting or anything?” said Nobby, mystified.
    “Doesn’t look like it,” said Mrs. Cake, equally fascinated. “They seem quite happy.”
    “You can’t see any…magnets?”
    “What’re they?”
    “Dunno,” Nobby admitted. “I ’spect you’d know ’em if you saw ’em.”
    Mrs. Cake, despite a certain rigidity of character, couldn’t help but be aware of a drift in Nobby’s speculation.
    “Some of the ladies look…nubile,” she hinted.
    “Ah, right,” said Nobby, his expression not changing in any way.
    “If you understand what I mean…”
    “Right. Yes. Nubile. Right.”
    Mrs. Cake gave up. Nobby counted out ten pennies.
    “And that’ll be soon, will it?” said Nobby.
    “Oh yes. I can’t see very far for tenpence.”
    “Happy young ladies…” mused Nobby. “Nubile, too. Definitely something to think about.”
    After he’d gone, Mrs. Cake went back to her crystal and sneaked a whole ten dollars’ worth of precognition for her own curiosity and satisfaction, and laughed about it all afternoon.

    Vimes was only half surprised when the doors to the Rats Chamber opened and there, sitting at the head of the table, was Lord Rust. The Patrician wasn’t there.
    He was half surprised. That is, at a certain shallow level he thought, that’s odd, I thought you couldn’t budge the man with a siege weapon. But at a dark level, where the daylight seldom penetrated, he thought: of course . At a time like this men like Rust rise to the top. It’s like stirring a swamp with a stick. Really big bubbles are suddenly on the surface and there’s a bad smell about everything. Nevertheless, he saluted and said:
    “Lord Vetinari on his holidays, then?”
    “Lord Vetinari stepped down this evening, Vimes,” said Lord Rust. “Pro tem, of course. Just for the duration of the emergency.”
    “Really?” said Vimes.
    “Yes. And I have to say that he anticipated a certain…cynicism on your part, commander, and therefore asked me to give you this letter. You will see that it is sealed with his seal.”
    Vimes looked at the envelope. There was certainly the official seal in the wax, but—
    He met Lord Rust’s gaze and at least that suspicion faded. Rust wouldn’t try a trick like that. Men like Rust had a