The Truth

wise to be thinking too deeply when walking the streets of Ankh-Morpork.
    He walked past Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler with barely a nod, but in any case Mr. Dibbler was otherwise engaged.
    He had two customers. Two at once, unless one was daring another, was a great rarity. But these two were worrying him. They were inspecting the merchandise.
    C.M.O.T. Dibbler sold his buns and pies all around the city, even outside the Assassins’ Guild. He was a good judge of people, especially when it involved judging when to step innocently around a corner and then run like hell, and he had just decided that he was really unlucky to be standing here and also that it was too late.
    He didn’t often meet killers. Murderers, yes, but murderers usually had some strange reason and in any case generally murdered friends and relations. And he’d met plenty of assassins, but assassination had a certain style and even certain rules.
    These men were killers. The big one with the powdery streaks down his jacket and the smell of mothballs was just a vicious thug, no problem there, but the small one with the lank hair had the smell of violent and spiteful death about him.
    You didn’t often look into the eyes of someone who’d kill because it seemed like a good idea at the time.
    Moving his hands carefully, Dibbler opened the special section of his tray, the high-class one that contained sausages whose contents were (1) meat (2) from a known four-footed creature (3) probably land-dwelling.
    “Or may I recommend these, gentlemen,” he said, and because old habits die hard he couldn’t stop himself from adding, “Finest pork.”
    “Good, are they?”
    “You’ll never want to eat another, sir.”
    The other man said, “How about the other sort?”
    “Pardon?”
    “Hooves and pig snot and rats what fell in the —ing mincer.”
    “What Mr. Tulip here means,” said Mr. Pin, “is a more organic sausage.”
    “Yeah,” said Mr. Tulip. “I’m very —ing environmental like that.”
    “Are you sure? No, no, fine!” Dibbler raised a hand. The manner of the two men had changed. They were clearly very sure of everything. “We-ell, you want a bad—a less good sausage, then…er?”
    “With —ing fingernails in it,” said Mr. Tulip.
    “Well, er…I do…I could…” Dibbler gave up. He was a salesman. You sold what you sold. “Let me tell you about these sausages,” he went on, smoothly shifting an internal motor into reverse. “When someone chopped off his thumb in the abattoir, they didn’t even stop the grinder. You prob’ly won’t find any rat in them ’cos rats don’t go near the place. There’s animals in there that…well, you know how they say life began in some kind of big soup? Same with these sausages. If you want a bad sausage, you won’t get better than these.”
    “You keep ’em for your special customers, do you?” said Mr. Pin.
    “To me, sir, every customer is special.”
    “And you got mustard?”
    “People call it mustard,” Dibbler began, getting carried away, “but I call it—”
    “I like —ing mustard,” said Mr. Tulip.
    “—really great mustard,” said Dibbler, not missing a beat.
    “We’ll take two,” said Mr. Pin. He did not reach for his wallet.
    “On the house!” said Dibbler. He stunned two sausages, enbunned them, and thrust them forward. Mr. Tulip took both of them, and the mustard pot.
    “Do you know what they called a sausage-in-a-bun in Quirm?” said Mr. Pin, as the two walked away.
    “No?” said Mr. Tulip.
    “They call it le sausage-in-le-bun.”
    “What, in a —ing foreign language? You’re —ing kidding!”
    “I’m not a —ing kidder, Mr. Tulip.”
    “I mean, they ought to call it a…a…sausage dans lar derriere,” said Mr. Tulip. He took a bite of his Dibbler delight. “Hey, that’s what this —ing thing tastes of,” he added, with his mouth full.
    “In a bun, Mr. Tulip.”
    “I know what I meant. This is a —ing awful sausage…”
    Dibbler watched them go. It wasn’t often you heard language like that in Ankh-Morpork. Most people talked without leaving gaps in their sentences, and he wondered what the word “ing” meant.

    A crowd was gathered outside a large building in Welcome Soap, and the cart traffic was already backed up all the way to Broad Way. And, thought William, wherever a large crowd is gathered, someone ought to write down why.
    The reason in this case was clear. A man was standing on the flat parapet just outside the