Once More With Footnotes

abuse, cruelty to animals, assault on an officer of the law, murder, and complete and total disrespect of Authority. It is for c hildren, of course, who laugh themselves sick. The plot is: Mr. Punch, who has a voice like a parrot with its foot caught in a power socket, beats up everyone, sometimes including the Devil, with his stick, while shouting "that's the way to do it!" It is, indeed, the original slapstick comedy.
     
    In many shows, the small dog Toby also appears, and does nothing but sit at the side of the stage and wear a ruff. In my opinion he is the brains of the outfit, and controls the Punch and Judy man by strange mental p owers.
     
    Despite the feeling of people like Carrot, who have occasionally tried to ban Punch, he survives and evolves. It can only be a matter of time before an anger management consultant is included amongst the puppets. I'd like to be there when it happen s. Oh, happy day.
     
     
     
     
     
                  Editor's Note: "FTB" = "Fluffy Teddy Bear." It should be obvious, but took us the longest time to figure out! So it goes.

T heatre of C ruelty
     
                  It was a fine summer morning, the kind to make a man happy to be alive. And probably the man would have been happier to be alive. He was, in fact, dead.
     
                  It would be hard to be deader without special training.
     
                  "Well, now," said Sergeant Colon (Ankh-Morpork City Guard, Night Watch), consulting his notebook, "so far we has cause of death as a) being beaten with at least one blunt instrument, b) being strangled with a string of sausages, and c) being savaged by at least two animals with big sharp teeth. What do we do now, Nobby?"
     
                  "Arrest the suspect, Sarge," said Corporal Nobbs, saluting smartly.
     
                  "What suspect, Nobby?"
     
                  "Him," said Nobby, prodding the corpse with his boot. "I call it highly suspicious, being dead like that."
     
                  "But he's the victim, Nobby. He was the one what was killed. "
     
                  " Ah, right. So we can get him as an accessory, to o. "
     
                  " Nobby — "
     
                  "He's been drinking, too. We could do him for being dead and disorderly."
     
                  Colon scratched his head. Arresting the corpse offered, of course, certain advantages. But ...
     
                  "I reckon," he said slowly, "that Captain Vimes'll want this one sor ted out. You'd better bring it back to the Watch House, Nobby."
     
                  "And then can we eat the sausages, Sarge?" said Corporal Nobbs.
     
    -
     
                  It wasn't easy, being the senior policeman in Ankh-Morpork, greatest of cities of the Discworld.* ( *Which is flat and goes through space on the back of an enormous turtle, and why not ... ) There were probably worlds, Captain Vimes mused in his gloomier moments, where there weren't wizards (who made locked room mysteries commonplace) or zombies (murder cases were really strang e when the victim could be the chief witness) and where dogs could be relied on to do nothing in the night time and not go around chatting to people. Captain Vimes believed in logic, in much the same way as a man in a desert believed in ice — i.e., it was so mething he really needed, but this just wasn't the place for it. Just once, he thought, it'd be nice to solve something.
     
                  He looked at the blue-faced body on the slab, and felt a tiny flicker of excitement. These were clues. He'd never seen proper clues b efore.
     
                  "Couldn't have been a robber, Captain," said Sergeant Colon. "The reason being, his pockets were full of money. Eleven dollars."
     
                  "I wouldn't call that full," said Captain Vimes.
     
                  "It was all in pennies and ha'pennies, sir. I'm amazed his trouse rs stood the strain. And I have cunningly detected the fact that he was a showman, sir. He had some cards in his pocket, sir. 'Chas. Slumber, Children's Entertainer'."
     
                  "I suppose no one saw anything?" said Vimes.
     
                  "Well, sir," said Sergeant Colon helpfu lly, "I told young Corporal Carrot to find some witnesses."
     
                  "You asked