The Truth

with the merc-ant-ile well-bein’of the city, you ole fool! ”
    “Can’t argue with the wife,” said Arthur, giving William a sheepish look.
    “I’ll hide your trousers another time, you silly ole man! You come down here or I’ll give you what for!”
    “Three happy married years,” said Arthur cheerfully, waving at the distant figure. “The other thirty-two haven’t been too bad, either. But she can’t cook cabbage worth a damn.”
    “Really?” said William, and dreamily fell forward.
    He woke up lying on the ground, which was what he’d expected, but still in a three-dimensional shape, which he hadn’t. He realized that he was not dead. One reason for this was the face of Corporal Nobbs of the Watch looking down at him. William considered that he had lived a relatively blameless life and, if he died, did not expect to encounter anything with a face like Corporal Nobbs’s, the worst thing ever to hit a uniform if you didn’t count seagulls.
    “Ah, you’re all right,” said Nobbs, looking slightly disappointed.
    “Feel…faint,” William murmured.
    “I could give you the kiss of life if you like,” said Nobbs.
    Unbidden by William, various muscles spasmed and jerked him vertical so fast that his feet momentarily left the ground.
    “Much better now!” he shouted.
    “Only we learned it down the Watch House and I haven’t had a chance to try it yet…”
    “Fit as a fiddle!” William wailed.
    “…I’ve been practicing on my hand and everything…”
    “Never felt better!”
    “Old Arthur Crank’s always doing that,” said the watchman. “He’s just after tobacco money. Still, everyone clapped when he carried you down. It’s amazing how he can still climb drainpipes like that.”
    “Is it really…” William felt oddly empty.
    “It was great when you were sick. I mean, from four stories up, it looked quite pretty. Someone ought to have taken a picture—”
    “Got to be going!” William screamed.
    I must be going mad, he thought, as he hurried towards Gleam Street. Why the hell did I do it? It wasn’t as if it was my business.
    Except, come to think of it, it is now.

    Mr. Tulip burped.
    “What’re we going to do now?” he said.
    Mr. Pin had acquired a map of the city, and was examining it closely.
    “We are not your old-style bother boys, Mr. Tulip. We are thinking men. We learn . We learn fast. ”
    “What’re we going to do now?” Mr. Tulip repeated. Sooner or later he’d be able to catch up.
    “We’re going to buy ourselves a little insurance, that’s what we’re going to do. I don’t like no lawyer having all that muck on us. Ah…here we are. It’s the other side of the university.”
    “We’re going to buy some magic?” said Mr. Tulip.
    “Not exactly magic.”
    “I fort you said this city was a —ing pushover?”
    “It has its good points, Mr. Tulip.”
    Mr. Tulip grinned. “—ing right ,” he said. “I want to go back to the Museum of Antiquities!”
    “Now, now, Mr. Tulip. Business first, pleasure later,” said Mr. Pin.
    “I want to —ing see all of ’em!”
    “Later on. Later on. Can you wait twenty minutes without exploding?”
    The map led them to the Thaumatological Park, just hub-wards of Unseen University. It was still so new that the modern flat-roofed buildings, winners of several awards from the Guild of Architects, hadn’t even begun to let in water and shed window-panes in a breeze.
    An attempt had been made to pretty up the immediate area with grass and trees, but since the site had been partly built on the old ground known as the “unreal estate” this had not worked as planned. The area had been a dump for Unseen University for thousands of years. There was a lot more below that turf than old mutton bones, and magic leaks. On any map of thaumic pollution, the unreal estate would be the center of some worrying concentric circles.
    Already the grass was multicolored and some of the trees had walked away.
    Nevertheless, several businesses were thriving there, products of what the Archchancellor, or at least his speechwriter, had called “a marriage between magic and modern business; after all, the modern world doesn’t need very many magic rings and magic swords, but it does need some way to keep its appointments in order. Lot of garbage, really, but I suppose it makes everyone happy. Is it time for that lunch yet?”
    One of the results of this joyful union was now on the counter in front of Mr. Pin.
    “It’s the Mk