Snuff

genius was a meticulously calculated wage and a chance, every now and again, to go out on the streets with a real policeman, swinging his truncheon and glaring at trolls.
    Carrot leaned back. “So how’s Fred getting on, Cheery?”
    â€œNothing much that I can see, really, um…”
    â€œThat was a big um, Cheery.”
    The trouble was that Captain Carrot had a friendly, honest and open face, that made you want to tell him things. It didn’t help that Sergeant Littlebottom held a small torch for the captain, even though he was well and truly spoken for—he was also a dwarf, well, technically, and you can’t help how you dream. “Well…” she began reluctantly.
    Carrot leaned forward. “Yes, Cheery?”
    She gave in. “Well, sir, it’s unggue. You come from Copperhead…Did you run into many goblins up there?”
    â€œNo, but I know that unggue is their religion, if you can call it that.”
    Cheery Littlebottom shook her head, trying to get out of her mind some speculation about the part a reasonably high stool might play in a relationship, and telling herself that Sergeant Hammer-of-Gold, over in the Dolly Sisters Watch House, caught her eye every time she was busily catching his eye when they happened to meet on patrol, and was probably a really good catch if she could pluck up the courage to ask him if he was actually male. * She said, “Unggue is not a religion, it’s a superstition. The goblins don’t believe in Tak, * sir, they’re savages, scavengers, but…” She hesitated again. “There’s something I was told once, and it’s unbelievable, but sometimes they eat their babies, sir, or at least, the mother will eat her child, her newborn child, if there’s famine. Can you believe that?”
    Carrot’s mouth dropped open for a moment, and then a small voice said, “Yes, I think I can, sergeant, if you would excuse my saying so.”
    A. E. Pessimal looked defiantly at their expressions and tried to stand a little straighter. “It’s a matter of logic, you see? No food? But the mother may survive by reconsuming the child, as it were, whereas, if all other food has been exhausted, then the child will die. In fact the child is dead as soon as the conundrum is postulated. The mother, on the other hand, might, by so doing, survive for long enough for more food to be found and become available, and in the course of time may bear another child.”
    â€œYou know, that is a very accountancy thing to say!” said Cheery.
    A. E. Pessimal remained calm. “Thank you, Sergeant Littlebottom, I shall take that as a compliment because the logic is impeccable. It’s what is known as the dreadful logic of necessity. I’m well versed in the logistics of survival situations.”
    The chair creaked as Captain Carrot leaned forward. “No offense meant, Inspector Pessimal, but may I enquire as to what kind of issues of survival arise during double-entry bookkeeping?”
    A. E. Pessimal sighed. “It can get pretty hazardous as the end of the fiscal year draws near, captain. However, I take your point and would like you to understand that I believe I have read every single memoir, manual, log, and message in a bottle—by which I mean, of course, message taken from a bottle—that is currently available, and I can assure you that you would be amazed at the terrible decisions that sometimes have to be made by a group of people so that some , if not all, may live. Classically we have the shipwrecked sailors adrift in an open boat far on the ocean with succor extremely unlikely. Generally, the procedure is to eat one another’s legs, although sooner or later the supply of legs is going to run, if I may use the word, out; and then arises the question who will die so that some may live. Dreadful algebra, captain.” Only then did A. E. Pessimal blush. “I’m sorry. I know that I am a small, weak man, but I have amassed a large library; I dream of dangerous places.”
    â€œPerhaps you should walk through the Shades, inspector,” said Carrot, “you wouldn’t have to dream. Do carry on, Cheery.”
    Cheery Littlebottom shrugged. “But eating your own child, that’s got to be wrong, yes?”
    â€œWell, sergeant,” said A. E. Pessimal, “I have read about such things and if you think of the outcomes, which are the death of both