The Truth

follow Slant’s instructions to the letter, which would mean they’d maintain a reputation for efficiency, or they could scrag Slant and that damn vampire and maybe a couple of bystanders and leave, perhaps setting fire to a few things on the way out. That was also news that got around. People would understand how upset they were.
    “But first we’ll…” Mr. Pin stopped, and in a strangled voice said: “Is someone standing behind me?”
    “No,” said Mr. Tulip.
    “I thought I heard…footsteps.”
    “No one here but us.”
    “Right. Right.” Mr. Pin shuddered, straightened his jacket, and then looked Mr. Tulip up and down.
    “Clean yourself up a bit, will you? Sheesh, you’re leaking dust!”
    “I can handle it,” said Mr. Tulip. “Keeps me sharp. Keeps me alert.”
    Pin sighed. Mr. Tulip always had amazing faith in the contents of the next bag, whatever it was. And it was usually cat flea powder cut with dandruff.
    “Force isn’t going to work on Slant,” he said.
    Mr. Tulip cracked his knuckles.
    “Works on everyone,” he said.
    “No. A man like him will have a lot of muscle to call on,” said Pin. He patted his jacket. “It’s time Mr. Slant said hello to my little friend.”

    A plank thumped down onto the crusted surface of the river Ankh. Shifting his weight with care, and gripping the rope tightly in his teeth, Arnold Sideways swung himself onto it. It sunk a little in the ooze, but stayed—for want of a better word—afloat.
    A few feet away the depression that had been left by the first sack landing in the river was already filling up with—for want of a better word—water.
    He reached the end of the plank, steadied himself, and managed to lasso the remaining sack. It was moving.
    “He’s got it,” shouted the Duck Man, who was watching from under the bridge. “Heave away, everybody!”
    The sack came out of the muck with a sucking sound, and Arnold pushed himself aboard as it was dragged back to the bank.
    “Oh, very well done, Arnold,” said the Duck Man, helping him off the sodden sack and back onto his trolley. “I really doubted if the surface would support you at this stage of the tide!”
    “Bit of luck for me, eh, when that cart ran over my legs all them years ago!” said Arnold Sideways. “I’d have drowned, else!”
    Coffin Henry slit the sacking with his knife and tipped the second lot of little terriers onto the ground, where they coughed and sneezed.
    “One or two of the little buggers look done for,” he said. “I’ll give ’em mouth-to-mouth respiritoriation, shall I?”
    “Certainly not, Henry,” said the Duck Man. “Have you no idea of hygiene?”
    “Jean who?”
    “You can’t kiss dogs!” said the Duck Man. “They could catch something dreadful.”
    The crew looked at the dogs that were clustering round their fire. How the dogs had landed in the river was something they didn’t bother to wonder about. All sorts of things landed in the river. It was the sort of thing that happened all the time. The crew took a keen interest in floating things. But it was unusual to get this many all at once.
    “Maybe it’s been raining dogs?” said Altogether Andrews, who was being steered by the mind known as Curly at the moment. The crew liked Curly. He was easy to get along with. “I heard the other day that’s been happening lately.”
    “You know what?” said Arnold Sideways. “What we ort to do, right, is get some stuff, like…wood and stuff, and make a boat. We could get a lot more stuff if we had a boat.”
    “Ah, yes,” said the Duck Man. “I used to mess about in boats when I was a boy.”
    “ We could boat about in mess,” said Arnold. “Same thing.”
    “Not…exactly,” said the Duck Man. He looked at the circle of steaming, retching dogs.
    “I wish Gaspode was here,” he said. “He knows how to think about this sort of thing.”

    “A jar,” said the apothecary, carefully.
    “Sealed with wax,” William repeated.
    “And you want an ounce each of…”
    “Oil of aniseed, oil of rampion, and oil of scallatine,” said William.
    “I can do the first two,” said the apothecary, looking at the little list he’d been given. “But there is no such thing as a whole ounce of oil of scallatine in the city, you realize? It’s fifteen dollars for enough to go on a pinhead. We’ve got about enough to fill a mustard spoon and we have to keep that in a soldered lead box under water.”
    “I’ll take a pinhead’s worth,