Snuff

occasional laxative, I suppose,” said Vimes. “So Sybil’s ancestors used to come along and talk to the hermit whenever they were faced with a philosophical conundrum, yes?”
    Willikins looked puzzled. “Good heavens, no, sir, I can’t imagine that any of them would ever dream of doing that. They never had any truck with philosophical conundra. * They were aristocrats, you see? Aristocrats don’t notice philosophical conundra. They just ignore them. Philosophy includes contemplating the possibility that you might be wrong, sir, and a real aristocrat knows that he is always right. It’s not vanity, you understand, it’s built-in absolute certainty. They may sometimes be as mad as a hatful of spoons, but they are always definitely and certainly mad.”
    Vimes stared at him in admiration. “How the hell do you know all this, Willikins?”
    â€œWatched them, sir. In the good old days when her ladyship’s granddad was alive he made certain that the whole staff of Scoone Avenue came down here with the family in the summer. As you know, I’m not much of a scholar and, truth to tell, neither are you, but when you grow up on the street you learn fast because if you don’t learn fast you’re dead.”
    They were now walking across an ornamental bridge, over what was probably the trout stream and, Vimes assumed, a tributary of Old Treachery, a name whose origin he had yet to comprehend. Two men and one little boy, walking over a bridge that might be carrying crowds, and carts and horses. The world seemed unbalanced.
    â€œYou see, sir,” said Willikins, “being definite is what gave them all this money and land. Sometimes lost it for them as well, of course. One of Lady Sybil’s great-uncles once lost a villa and two thousand acres of prime farmland by being definite in believing that a cloakroom ticket could beat three aces. He was killed in the duel that followed, but at least he was definitely dead.”
    â€œIt’s snobbishness and I don’t like it,” Vimes said.
    Willikins rubbed the side of his nose. “Well, commander, it ain’t snobbishness. You don’t get much of that from the real McCoy, in my experience. The certain ones, I mean…they don’t worry about what the neighbors think or walking around in old clothes. They’re confident, see? When Lady Sybil was younger the family would come down here for the sheep-shearing, and her father would muck in with everybody else, with his sleeves rolled up and everything, and he’d see to it that there was a round of beer for all the lads afterward, and he’d drink with them, flagon for flagon. Of course, he was a brandy man mostly, so a bit of beer wouldn’t have him on the floor. He never worried about who he was. He was a decent old boy, her father—and her granddad, too. Certain, you see, never worried.”
    They walked along an avenue of chestnut trees for a while and then Vimes said, morosely, “Are you saying that I don’t know who I am?”
    Willikins looked up into the trees and replied, thoughtfully, “It looks as though there’ll be a lot of conkers this year, commander, and if you don’t mind me suggesting it, you might think of bringing this young lad down here when they start falling. I was the dead-rat conkers champion for years when I was a kid, until I found out that the real things grew on trees and didn’t squish so easily. As for your question,” he went on, “I think Sam Vimes is at his best when he’s confident that he’s Sam Vimes. Good grief, and they are fruiting early this year!”
    The avenue of chestnut trees ended at this point and before them lay an apple orchard. “Not the best of fruit, as apples go,” said Willikins as Vimes and Young Sam crossed over to it, raising the dust on the chalky road. The comment seemed inconsequential to Vimes, but Willikins appeared to consider the orchard very important.
    â€œThe little boy will want to see this,” Willikins said enthusiastically. “Saw it myself when I was the boot boy. Totally changed the way I thought about the world. The third earl, ‘Mad’ Jack Ramkin, had a brother called Woolsthorpe, probably for his sins. He was something of a scholar and would have been sent to the university to become a wizard were it not for the fact that his brother let it be known that any male sibling of his who took