The Truth

Bad karma plops on me once more.”
    “It was a week before Mr. Passmore was able to walk again, though,” said William. The case of Dibbler’s second customer had been very useful for his newsletter, which rather made up for the two dollars.
    “I wasn’t to know there really is a Dragon of Unhappiness,” said Dibbler.
    “I don’t think there was until you convinced him that one exists,” said William.
    Dibbler brightened a little. “Ah, well, say what you like, I’ve always been good at selling ideas. Can I convince you the idea that a sausage in a bun is what you desire at this time?”
    “Actually I’ve really got to get this along to—” William began, and then said, “Did you just hear someone shout?”
    “I’ve got some cold pork pies, too, somewhere,” said Dibbler, ferreting in his tray. “I can give you a convincingly bargain price on—”
    “I’m sure I heard something,” said William.
    Dibbler cocked an ear.
    “Sort of like a rumbling?” he said.
    “Yes.”
    They stared into the slowly rolling clouds that filled Broad Way.
    Which became, quite suddenly, a huge tarpaulin-covered cart, moving unstoppably and very fast…
    And the last thing William remembered, before something flew out of the night and smacked him between the eyes, was someone shouting, “Stop the press!”

    The rumor, having been pinned to the page by William’s pen like a butterfly to a cork, didn’t come to the ears of some people, because they had other, darker things on their mind.
    Their rowboat slid through the hissing waters of the river Ankh, which closed behind it slowly.
    Two men were bent over the oars. The third sat in the pointy end. Occasionally it spoke.
    It said things like, “My nose itches.”
    “You’ll just have to wait till we get there,” said one of the rowers.
    “You could let me out again. It really itches.”
    “We let you out when we stopped for supper.”
    “It didn’t itch then.”
    The other rower said, “Shall I hit him up alongside the —ing head with the —ing oar again, Mr. Pin?”
    “Good idea, Mr. Tulip.”
    There was a dull thump in the darkness.
    “Ow.”
    “Now no more fuss, friend, otherwise Mr. Tulip will lose his temper.”
    “Too —ing right.” Then there was a sound like an industrial pump.
    “Hey, go easy on that stuff, why don’t you?”
    “Ain’t —ing killed me yet, Mr. Pin.”
    The boat oozed to a halt alongside a tiny, little-used landing stage. The tall figure who had so recently been the focus of Mr. Pin’s attention was bundled ashore and hustled away down an alley.
    A moment later there was the sound of a carriage rolling away into the night.
    It would seem quite impossible, on such a mucky night, that there could have been anyone to witness this scene.
    But there was. The universe requires everything to be observed, lest it cease to exist.
    A figure shuffled out from the shadows of the alley, close by. There was a smaller shape wobbling uncertainly by its side.
    Both of them watched the departing coach as it disappeared into the snow.
    The smaller of the two figures said, “Well, well, well. There’s a fing. Man all bundled up and hooded. An interesting fing, eh?”
    The taller figure nodded. It wore a huge old greatcoat several sizes too big, and a felt hat that had been reshaped by time and weather into a soft cone that overhung the wearer’s head.
    “Scraplit,” it said. “Thatch and trouser, a blewit the grawney man. I told ’im. I told ’im. Millennium hand and shrimp. Bugrit.”
    After a bit of a pause it reached into its pocket and produced a sausage, which broke into two pieces. One bit disappeared under the hat, and the other got tossed to the smaller figure who was doing most of the talking or, at least, most of the coherent talking.
    “Looks like a dirty deed to me,” said the smaller figure, which had four legs.
    The sausage was consumed in silence. Then the pair set off into the night again.
    In the same way that a pigeon can’t walk without bobbing its head, the taller figure appeared unable to walk without a sort of low-key, random mumbling:
    “I told ’em, I told ’em. Millennium hand and shrimp. I said, I said, I said. Oh, no. But they only run out, I told ’em. Sod ’em. Doorsteps. I said, I said, I said. Teeth. Wassa name of age, I said I told ’em, not my fault, matterofact, matterofact, stand to reason…”
    The rumor did come to its ears later on, but by then it was part of it.
    As for Mr. Pin