Snuff

unusual for the old fart to spend a penny more than he needs to.’
    ‘It wasn’t him, dear, it was Gravid.’
    Vimes woke a little more. ‘The son? The criminal?’
    ‘I believe, Sam, that the word is entrepreneur , and I’d like to go to sleep now, if it’s all the same to you.’
    Sam Vimes knew that the best thing he could say was nothing, and he sank back into the depths, thinking words like fiddler , sharp dealer , inserter of a crafty crowbar between what is right and wrong , and mine and thine , wide boy , financier and untouchable …
    Gently drifting into a nightmare world where the good guys and bad guys so often changed hats without warning, Vimes wrestled sleeplessness to the ground and made certain that it got eight hours.

Next morning Vimes, hand in hand with his son, walked thoughtfully towards the house of Miss Beedle, not knowing what to expect. He had little experience of the literary world, much preferring the literal one, and he had heard that writers spent all day in their dressing gowns drinking champagne. 17 On the other hand, as he approached the place up another little lane, some reconsideration began to take place. For one thing, the ‘cottage’ had a garden that would do credit to a farm. When he looked over the fence he saw rows of vegetables and soft fruit, and there was an orchard and what was probably a pigsty and, over there, a proper outdoor privy, very professionally done, with the very nearly compulsory crescent-moon shape fretsawed into the door, and the log pile close at hand so that the most efficient use could be made of every trip down the path. The whole place had a sensible and serious air, and certainly wasn’t what you would expect of somebody who just mucked about with words every day.
    Miss Beedle opened the door a fraction of a second after he had knocked. She didn’t look surprised.
    ‘I was rather expecting you, your grace,’ she said, ‘or is it Mister Policeman today? From what I hear, it’s always Mister Policeman one way or the other.’ Then she looked down. ‘And this must be Young Sam.’ She glanced up at his father and said, ‘They tend to get rather tongue-tied, don’t they?’
    ‘You know, I’ve got lots of poo,’ said Young Sam proudly. ‘I keep it in jam jars and I’ve got a laboratory in the lavatory. Have you got any elephant poo? It goes – and here he paused for effect – ‘ dung! ’
    For a moment Miss Beedle had that slightly glazed sheen often seen on the face of someone meeting Young Sam for the first time. She looked at Vimes. ‘You must be very proud of him.’
    The proud father said, ‘It’s very hard to keep up – I know that.’
    Miss Beedle led the way out of the hall and into a room in which chintz played a major part, and drew young Sam over to a large bureau. She opened a drawer and handed the boy what looked like a small book. ‘This is a bound proof of The Joy of Earwax , and I shall sign it for you if you like.’
    Young Sam took it like one receiving a holy object, and his father, temporarily becoming his mum, said, ‘What do you say?’ To which Young Sam responded with a beam and a thank you and a ‘Please don’t scribble on it. I’m not allowed to scribble in books.’
    While Young Sam was happily turning the pages of his new book, his father was introduced to an overstuffed chair. Miss Beedle gave him a smile and hurried off towards the kitchen, leaving Vimes with not much to look at except for a room full of bookcases, more overstuffed furniture, a full-size concert harp, and a wall clock made to look like an owl, whose eyes swung backwards and forwards hypnotically in time with the tick – presumably to the point where you either committed suicide or picked up the poker in the hearth nearby and beat the damn thing until the springs broke.
    While Vimes was warmly contemplating this he realized that he was being watched, and he looked round into the worried face and prognathous jaw of the goblin called Tears of the Mushroom.
    Instinctively he looked at Young Sam, and suddenly the biggest raisin in his cake of apprehension was: what will Young Sam do? How many books had he read? They hadn’t told him nasty tales about goblins, had they, or read him too many of those innocent, colourful fairytale books which contain nightmares ready to leap out and some needless fear that will cause trouble one day?
    And what Young Sam did was march across the floor, stop dead in front of the girl and say, ‘I