The Truth

more sort of spaced out?” said Gunilla.
    William stared at the printed page. An idea crept over him. It seemed to evolve from the page itself.
    “How about,” he said, “if we put a little title on each piece?”
    He picked up a scrap of paper and doodled: 5/6 Hurt in Tavern Brawl.
    Boddony read it solemnly.
    “Yes,” he said eventually. “That looks…suitable.” He passed the paper across the table.
    “What do you call this news sheet?” he said.
    “I don’t,” said William.
    “You’ve got to call it something,” said Boddony. “What do you put at the top?”
    “Generally something like ‘To my Lord The…’” William began. Boddony shook his head.
    “You can’t put that,” he said. “You want something a bit more general. More snappy .”
    “How about ‘Ankh-Morpork Items,’” said William. “Sorry, but I’m not much good at names.”
    Gunilla pulled his little hod out of his apron and selected some letters from one of the cases on the table. He screwed them together, inked them, and rolled a sheet of paper over them.
    William read: Ankh-Morpork tImes.
    “Messed that up a bit. Wasn’t paying attention,” muttered Gunilla, reaching for the type. William stopped him.
    “I don’t know,” he said. “Er. Leave it as it is…just make it a bigger T and a smaller i .”
    “That’s it, then,” said Gunilla. “All done. All right, lad? How many copies do you want?”
    “Er…twenty? Thirty?”
    “How about a couple of hundred?” Gunilla nodded at the dwarfs, who set to work. “It’s hardly worth going to press for less.”
    “Good grief! I can’t imagine there’s enough people in the city that’d pay five dollars!”
    “All right, charge ’em half a dollar. Then it’ll be a fifty dollars for us and the same for you.”
    “My word, really?”
    William stared at the beaming dwarf.
    “But I’ve still got to sell them,” he said. “It’s not as though they’re cakes in a shop. It’s not like—”
    He sniffed. His eyes began to water.
    “Oh dear,” he said. “We’re going to have another visitor. I know that smell.”
    “What smell?” said the dwarf.
    The door creaked open.
    There was this to be said about the Smell of Foul Ole Ron, an odor so intense that it took on a personality of its own and fully justified the capital letter: after the initial shock the organs of smell just gave up and shut down, as if no more able to comprehend the thing than an oyster can comprehend the ocean. After some minutes in its presence, wax would start to trickle out of people’s ears and their hair would begin to bleach.
    It had developed to such a degree that it now led a semi-independent life of its own, and often went to the theater by itself, or read small volumes of poetry. Ron was outclassed by his smell.
    Foul Ole Ron’s hands were thrust deeply into his pockets, but from one pocket issued a length of string, or rather a great many lengths of string tied into one length. The other was attached to a small dog of the grayish persuasion. It may have been a terrier. It walked with a limp and also in a kind of oblique fashion, as though it was trying to insinuate its way through the world. It walked like a dog who has long ago learned that the world contains more thrown boots than meaty bones. It walked like a dog that was prepared, at any moment, to run.
    It looked up at William with crusted eyes and said: “Woof.”
    William felt that he ought to stand up for mankind.
    “Sorry about the smell,” he said. Then he stared at the dog.
    “What’s this smell you keep on about?” said Gunilla. The rivets on his helmet were beginning to tarnish.
    “It, er, belongs to Mr…. er…Ron,” said William, stillgiving the dog a suspicious look. “People say it’s glandular.”
    He was sure he’d seen the dog before. It was always in the corner of the picture, as it were—ambling through the streets, or just sitting on a corner, watching the world go by.
    “What does he want?” said Gunilla. “D’you think he wants us to print something?”
    “Shouldn’t think so,” said William. “He’s a sort of beggar. Only they won’t let him in the Beggars’ Guild anymore.”
    “He isn’t saying anything.”
    “Well, usually he just stands there until people give him something to go away. Er…you heard of things like the Welcome Wagon, where various neighbors and traders greet newcomers to an area?”
    “Yes.”
    “Well, this is the dark side.”
    Foul Ole Ron nodded,