The Fifth Elephant

partly opened coffin and punched the air.
    “Yes!”
    “Well thpotted, Ladythip.”
    “Well, well. Samuel Vimes. Poor devil. Do the doggies know?”
    Igor nodded. “The baron’th Igor was altho collecting a methage, Ladythip.”
    “And the dwarfs?”
    “It ith an official appointment, Ladythip. Everyone knows. Hith Grace the Duke of Ankh-Morpork, Thir Thamuel Vimeth, Commander of the Ankh-Morpork Thity Watch.”
    “Then the midden has hit the windmill, Igor.”
    “Very well put, Ladythip. No one liketh a thort thower of thit.”
    “I imagine, Igor, that he’ll leave them behind.”

    Let us consider a castle from the point of view of its furniture.
    This one has chairs, yes, but they don’t look very lived in. There is a huge sofa near the fire, and that is ragged with use, but other furnishings look as if they’re there merely for show.
    There is a long oak table, well polished and looking curiously unused for such an old piece of furniture. Possibly the reason for this is that on the floor around it are a large number of white earthenware bowls.
    One of them has FATHER written on it.
    The Baroness Serafine von Uberwald slammed shut Twurp’s Peerage , irritably.
    “The man is a…a nothing,” she said. “A paper man. A man of straw. An insult. ”
    “The name Vimes goes back a long time,” said Wolfgang von Uberwald, who was doing one-handed push-ups in front of the fire.
    “So does the name Smith. What of it?”
    Wolf changed to the other hand, in midair. He was naked. He liked his muscles to get an airing. They shone. Someone with an anatomical chart could have picked out every one. They might also have remarked on the unusual way his blond hair grew not only on his head but down and across his shoulders as well,
    “He is a Duke, Mother.”
    “Hah! Ankh-Morpork hasn’t even got a king!”
    “…nineteen, twenty…I hear stories about that, Mother…”
    “Oh, stories . Sybil writes a silly little letter to me every year! Sam this, Sam that. Of course, she had to be grateful for what she could get, but…the man is just a thief-taker, after all. I shall refuse to see him.”
    “You will not do that, Mother,” Wolf grunted. “That would be…twenty-nine, thirty…dangerous. What do you tell Lady Sybil about us?”
    “Nothing! I don’t write back , of course. A rather sad and foolish woman.”
    “And she still writes every year?…thirty-six, thirty-seven…”
    “Yes. Four pages, usually. And that tells you everything about her you need to know. Where is your father?”
    A flap in the bottom of a nearby door swung back and a large, heavyset wolf trotted in. It glanced around the room, and then shook itself vigorously. The baroness bridled.
    “Guye! You know what I said! It’s after six! Change when you come in from the garden!”
    The wolf gave her a look, and strolled behind a massive oak screen at the far end of the room. There was a…noise, soft and rather strange, not so much an actual sound as a change in the texture of the air.
    The baron walked around from behind the screen, doing up the cord of a tattered dressing gown. The baroness sniffed.
    “At least your father wears clothes,” she said.
    “Clothes are unhealthy, mother,” said Wolf, calmly. “Nakedness is purity.”
    The baron sat down. He was a large, red-faced man, insofar as a face could be seen under the beard, hair, mustache and eyebrows which were engaged in a bitter four-way war over the remaining areas of bare skin.
    “Well?” he growled.
    “Vimes the thief-taker from Ankh-Morpork is going to be the alleged ambassador,” snapped the baroness.
    “Dwarfs?”
    “Of course they’ll be told.”
    The baron sat staring at nothing, with the same expression Detritus used when a new thought was being assembled.
    “Bad?” he ventured, at last.
    “Ruston, I’ve told you about this a thousand times!” said the baroness. “You’re spending far too much time Changed! You know what you’re like afterward. Supposing we had official visitors?”
    “Bite ’em!”
    “You see? Go on off to bed and don’t come down until you’re fit to be human!”
    “Vimes could ruin everything, Father,” said Wolfgang. He was now doing handstands, using one hand.
    “Ruston! Down! ”
    The baron stopped trying to scratch his ear with his leg.
    “Do?” he said.
    Wolfgang’s gleaming body dipped a moment as he changed hands again.
    “City life makes men weak. Vimes will be…fun. They do say he likes running,