Snuff

angrily. “ ‘Whence came it, that ethereal music?’ See what I mean? What’s wrong with ‘Where did that music come from’? Bloody stupid introductory sentence in any case. And what does ethereal mean, anyway?”
    The deputy sub hesitated. “I think it means runny. Could be wrong.”
    The chief sub-editor stood in misery. “Definitely poetry!”
    Somebody had played some music that was very good. Apparently it made everybody amazed. Why didn’t that twit in his rather feminine purple silk shirts just write something like that? After all, it said everything that you needed to know, didn’t it? He took out his red pencil, and just as he was applying it to the wretched manuscript there was a sound on the metal staircase and Mr. de Worde, the editor, staggered into the office, looking as if he had seen a ghost or, perhaps, a ghost had seen him.
    He looked groggily at the two puzzled men and managed to say, “Did Harrington send in his stuff?”
    The chief sub held out the offending stuff in front of him. “Yes, guv, a load of rubbish in my opinion.”
    De Worde grabbed it, read it with his lips moving and thrust it back at the man. “Don’t you dare change a single word. Front page, Bugsy, and I hope to hell that Otto got an iconograph.”
    â€œYessir, but, sir—”
    â€œAnd don’t bloody argue!” screamed De Worde. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be in my office.”
    He clattered on up the stairs while the sub-editor and his deputy stood gloomily reading Knatchbull Harrington’s copy again. It began:

W hence came it, that ethereal music, from what hidden grot or secret cell? From what dark cave? From what window into paradise? We watched the tiny figure under the spotlight and the music poured over us, sometimes soothing, sometimes blessing, sometimes accusing. Every one of us confronting ghosts, demons and old memories. The recital by Tears of the Mushroom, a young lady of the goblin persuasion, took but half an hour or, perhaps, it took a lifetime, and then it was over, to a silence which spread and grew and expanded until at last it exploded. Every single patron standing and clapping their hands raw, tears running down our faces. We had been taken somewhere and brought back and we were different people, longing for another journey into paradise, no matter what hell we had to atone for on the way.

T he chief sub and his deputy looked at each other with what Knatchbull would certainly have called a “wild surmise.” At last, the deputy sub-editor ventured, “I think he liked it.”

T hree days passed. They were busy days for Vimes. He had to get back into the swing again, although, to tell the truth, it was a case of getting out of one swing and into another one, while they were both swinging. So much paperwork to read! So much paperwork to push away! So much paperwork to delegate! So much paperwork to pretend he hadn’t received and that might have been eaten by the gargoyles.
    But today, in the Oblong Office, Lord Vetinari was close to ranting. Admittedly you needed to know him very well to realize this. He drummed his fingers on the table. “Snarkenfaugister? I’m sure she makes these things up!”
    Drumknott carefully put a cup of coffee on his master’s desk. “Alas, sir, there really is such a word. In Nothingfjord it means a maker of small but necessary items such as, for example, spills and very small clothes pegs for indoor use and half-sized cocktail sticks for people who don’t drink long drinks. The term could be considered of historical interest, because my research this morning turned up the fact that the last known snarkenfaugister died twenty-seven years ago in a freak pencil-sharpener accident. As a matter of fact, I gather that your crossword adversary herself does actually come from Nothingfjord.”
    â€œAh! There you have it! All those long winters sitting around the stove! Such terrible patience! But she runs the pet shop in Pellicool Steps! Dog collars! Cat biscuits! Mealworms! Such deviousness! Such subterfuge! Such a vocabulary! Snarkenfaugister!”
    â€œWell, sir, she is now the chief crossword compiler for the Times , and I suppose those things go with the territory.”
    Lord Vetinari calmed down. “One down, one across. She has won and I am cross. And, as you know, I am very rarely cross, Drumknott. A calm if