Snuff

it’s your house, and since I am your personal manservant I, by the irrevocable laws of the servants’ hall, outrank every one of the lazy buggers! I’ll show them how we do things in the real world, sir, don’t you worry—”
    He was interrupted by a heavy knock at the door, followed by a determined rattling of the doorknob. Willikins opened the door and Young Sam stomped in and announced, “Reading!”
    Vimes picked up his son and sat him on a chair. “How was your afternoon, my lad?”
    â€œDo you know,” said Young Sam, as if imparting the results of strict research, “cows do really big floppy poos, but sheep do small poos, like chocolates.”
    Vimes tried not to look at Willikins, who was shaking with suppressed laughter. He managed to keep his own expression solemn and said, “Well, of course, sheep are smaller.”
    Young Sam considered this. “Cow poos go flop,” he said. “It never said that in Where’s My Cow? ” Young Sam’s voice betrayed a certain annoyance that this important information had been withheld. “Miss Felicity Beedle wouldn’t have left it out.”
    Vimes sighed. “I just bet she wouldn’t.”
    Willikins opened the door. “I’ll leave you gentlemen to it, then, and see you later, sir.”
    â€œWillikins?” said Vimes, just as the man had his hand on the doorknob. “You appear to think that my brass knuckles are inferior to yours. Is that so?”
    Willikins smiled. “You’ve never really agreed with the idea of the spiked ones, have you, sir?” He carefully shut the door behind him.

Y oung Sam was already reading by himself these days, which was a great relief. Fortunately the works of Miss Felicity Beedle did not consist solely of exciting references to poo, in all its manifestations, but her output of small volumes for young children was both regular and highly popular, at least among the children. This was because she had researched her audience with care, and Young Sam had laughed his way through The Wee Wee Men , The War with the Snot Goblins , and Geoffrey and the Land of Poo . For boys of a certain age, they hit the squashy spot. At the moment he was giggling and choking his way through The Boy Who Didn’t Know How to Pick His Own Scabs , an absolute hoot for a boy just turned six. Sybil pointed out that the books were building Young Sam’s vocabulary, and not just about lavatorial matters, and it was indeed true that he was beginning, with encouragement, to read books in which nobody had a bowel movement at all. Which, when you came to think about it, was a mystery all by itself.
    Vimes carried his son to bed after ten minutes of enjoyable listening, and had managed to shave and get into the feared evening clothes a few moments before his wife knocked on the door. Separate dressing rooms and bathrooms, Vimes thought…if you had the money, there was no better way to keep a happy marriage happy. And in order to keep a happy marriage happy he allowed Sybil to bustle in, wearing, in fact, a bustle, * to adjust his shirt, tweak his collar and make him fit for company.
    And then she said, “I understand you gave the blacksmith a short lesson in unarmed combat, my dear…” The pause hung in the air like a silken noose.
    Vimes managed, “There’s something wrong here, I know it.”
    â€œI think so, too,” said Sybil.
    â€œYou do?”
    â€œYes, Sam, but this is not the time. We have guests arriving at any minute. If you could refrain from throwing any of them over your shoulder in between courses I would be grateful.” This was a terrific scolding by Sybil’s normally placid standards. Vimes did what any prudent husband would do, which was dynamically nothing. Suddenly all downstairs was full of voices and the noise of carriages crunching over the gravel. Sybil trimmed her sails and headed down to be the gracious hostess.
    Despite what his wife liked to imply, Vimes was rather good at dinners, having sat through innumerable civic affairs in Ankh-Morpork. The trick was to let the other diners do the talking while agreeing with them occasionally, giving himself time to think about other things.
    Sybil had made certain that this evening’s dinner was a light occasion. The guests were mostly people of a certain class who lived in the country but were not, as it were, of it. Retired warriors; a priest of