The Last Continent

analysis is certainly working on me.”
    “Beaut!”
    “And maybe you can show me how? Like, where the docks are?”
    “Well, I would ,” said Dibbler, obviously torn. “Only there’s going to be this hanging in a few hours and I want to get the meat pies warmed up.”
    “As a matter of fact, I heard the hanging had been canceled,” said Rincewind, conspiratorially. “The bloke escaped.”
    “Never!”
    “He certainly did!” said Rincewind. “I’m not pulling your raw prawn.”
    “Did he have any last words?”
    “‘Goodbye,’ I think.”
    “You mean he wasn’t in a famous last-stand shoot-out with the Watch?”
    “Apparently not.”
    “What kind of escape is that?” said Fair Go. “That’s no way to behave. I didn’t have to come up here, I gave up a good spot at the Galah for this, ’s not a good hanging without a meat pie.” He leaned closer and gave a furtive look both ways before continuing: “Say what you like, the Galah’s good for business. Their money’s the same as anyone else’s, that’s what I say.”
    “Well…yes. Obviously. Otherwise it’d be…different money,” said Rincewind. “ So , since your night’s ruined, why not just show me where the docks are?”
    There was still some uncertainty in Dibbler’s stance. Rincewind swallowed. He’d faced spiders, angry men with spears and bears that dropped on you out of trees, but now the continent was presenting him with its most dangerous challenge.
    “Tell you what,” he said, “I’ll…I’ll even… buy …something off you?”
    “The rope?”
    “Not the rope. Not the rope. Um…I know this may seem a somewhat esoteric question, but what’s in the meat pies?”
    “Meat.”
    “And what kind of meat?”
    “Ah, you want one of the gourmet meat pies, then?”
    “Oh, I see . That’s where you say what’s in them?”
    “Yup.”
    “Before or after the customers have bitten into them?”
    “Are you suggesting that my pies ain’t right?”
    “Let us say I’m inching my way to the possibility that they might be, shall we? All right, I’ll try a gourmet pie.”
    “Good on yer.” Dibbler removed a pie from the little heated section of his tray.
    “Now…what’s the meat? Cat?”
    “Do you mind? Mutton’s cheaper’n cat,” said Dibbler, upending the pie into a dish.
    “Well, that’s—” Rincewind’s face screwed up. “Oh, no, you’re pouring pea soup all over it too. Why does everyone always pour pea soup over it!”
    “No worries, mate. Puts a lining on your stomach,” said Dibbler, producing a red bottle.
    “And what’s that ?”
    “The cut de grass , mate.”
    “You’re tipping a meat pie into a dish of pea soup and now you want me to eat it with…with tomato sauce on it?”
    “Pretty colors, ain’t they?” said Fair Go, handing Rincewind a spoon.
    Rincewind prodded the pie. It rebounded gently off the side of the dish.
    Well, now…He’d eaten Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler’s sausages-in-a-bun, and Disembowel-Meself-Honourably Dibhala’s funny-colored antique eggs. And he’d survived, although there had been a few minutes when he’d hoped he wouldn’t. He’d eaten Al-Jiblah’s highly suspicious couscous, drunk the terrible yak-butter tea made by May-I-Never-Achieve-Enlightenment Dhiblang, forced down the topless, bottomless smorgasbord of Dib Diblossonson and tried not to chew the lumps of unmentionable blubber purveyed by May-I-Be-Kicked-In-My-Own-Ice-Hole Dibooki (his stomach heaved at the memory of that—after all, it was one thing to butcher dead beached whales and quite another just to leave them there until they exploded into bite sized chunks of their own accord). As for the green beer made by Swallow-Me-Own-Blowdart Dlang-Dlang…
    He’d drunk and eaten all these things. Everywhere in the world, someone turned up out of some strange primal mold to sell him a really dreadful regional delicacy. And this was just a pie, after all. How bad could it be? No, put it another way… How much worse could it be?
    He swallowed a mouthful.
    “Good, eh?” said Fair Go.
    “My gods,” said Rincewind.
    “They’re not just any mushy peas,” said Fair Go, slightly disconcerted by the fact that Rincewind was staring wildly at nothing. “They’re mushed by a champion pea musher.”
    “Good grief …” said Rincewind.
    “Are you all right, mister?”
    “It’s…everything I expected…” said Rincewind.
    “Now, mister, it ain’t that bad—”
    “You’re certainly a