The Fifth Elephant

Ankh-Morpork! You will run !”
    Hoping that his legs would support him, Vimes climbed out on the snow of the bank, as slowly as he dared. There was laughter from the werewolves.
    “You go into the water wearing clothes ?”
    Vimes looked down at his streaming legs.
    “You’ve never seen drawers before?” he said.
    Wolf’s lip curled again. He glanced triumphantly at the others.
    “Behold…civilization!” he said.
    Vimes puffed life into his cigar, and looked around the frozen woodland with as much hauteur as he could muster.
    “Four hundred crowns, did you say?” he said.
    “Yes!”
    Vimes sneered at the forest again.
    “What is that in Ankh-Morpork dollars, do you know? About a dollar fifty?”
    “The question will not arise!” Wolf bellowed.
    “Well, I don’t want to have to spend it all here—”
    “Run!”
    “Under the circumstances, then, I won’t ask if you have the money on you.”
    Vimes walked away from the werewolves, glad that they couldn’t see his face and very much aware that the skin on his back wanted to crawl around to his front.
    He kept moving calmly, his wet drawers beginning to crackle in the frosty air, until he was certain he was out of sight of the pack.
    So, let’s see…they’ve got better strength than you, they know the country, and if they’re as good as Angua they could track a fart through a skunk’s breakfast, and your legs hurt already.
    So what are the plusses here? Well…you’ve made Wolf really angry.
    Vimes broke into a run.
    Not much of a plus there then, all things considered.
    Vimes broke into a faster run.
    Off in the distance, wolves began to howl.

    There is a saying: It won’t get better if you picket.
    Corporal Nobbs or, rather, Guild President C. W. St. J. Nobbs, reflected on this. A little early snow was fizzling in the air over the metal drum in which, in approved strike fashion, was glowing red-hot in front of the Watch House.
    A main problem, as he saw it, was that there was something philosophically wrong with picketing a building that no one except a watchman wanted to enter in any case. It is impossible to keep people out of something that they don’t want to go into. It can’t be done.
    The chant hadn’t worked. An old lady had given him a penny.
    “Colon, Colon, Colon! Out! Out! Out!” shouted Reg Shoe happily, waving his placard.
    “That doesn’t sound right, Reg,” said Nobby. “Sounds like surgery.”
    He looked at the other placards. Dorfl was holding a large, closely worded text, detailing their grievances in full, with references to Watch procedures and citing a number of philosophical texts. Constable Visit’s sandwich board, on the other hand, proclaimed: WHAT PROFITETH IT A KINGDOM IF THE OXEN BE DEFLATED ? RIDDLES II, V 3
    Somehow, these cogent arguments did not seem to be bringing the city to its knees.
    He turned at the sound of a coach pulling up and looked up at a door which had a crest consisting mainly of a black shield. And above that, looking out of the window, was the face of Lord Vetinari.
    “Ah, none other than Corporal Nobbs,” said Lord Vetinari.
    At this point Nobby would have given quite a lot to be anyone other than Corporal Nobbs.
    He wasn’t sure whether, as a striker, he should salute. He saluted anyway, on the basis that a salute was seldom out of place.
    “I gather you have withdrawn your labor,” Lord Vetinari went on. “In your case, I am sure this presented a good deal of difficulty.”
    Nobby wasn’t certain about that sentence, but the Patrician seemed quite amiable.
    “Can’t stand by when the security of the city’s concerned, sir,” he said, oozing affronted loyalty from every unblocked pore.
    Lord Vetinari paused long enough for the peaceful, everyday sounds of a city apparently on the brink of catastrophe to filter into Nobby’s consciousness.
    “Well, of course I wouldn’t dream of interfering,” he said at last. “This is Guild business. I’m sure His Grace will understand fully when he returns.” He banged on the side of the coach. “Drive on.”
    And the coach was gone.
    A thought that had been nudging Nobby for some time chose this moment to besiege his once again.
    Mr. Vimes is going to go spare. He’s going to go mental.
    Lord Vetinari sat back in his seat, smiling to himself.
    “Er…did you mean that, sir?” said the clerk Drumknott, who was sitting opposite.
    “Certainly. Make a note to have the kitchen send them down cocoa and buns around three