The Wit And Wisdom Of Discworld

with bells. The duke took it with an expression of pathetic gratitude and blew his nose. Then he held it away from him and gazed at it with demented suspicion.
    ‘Is this a dagger I see before me?’ he mumbled.
    ‘Um. No, my lord. It’s my handkerchief, you see. You can sort of tell the difference if you look closely. It doesn’t have as many sharp edges.’
    *
    On the crest of the moor … was a standing stone …
    The stone was about the same height as a tall man, and made of a bluish tinted rock. It was considered intensely magical because, although there was only one of it, no one had ever been able to count it.
    *
    Granny, Nanny and Magrat have summoned a demon.
    ‘Who’re you?’ said Granny, bluntly.
    ‘My name is unpronounceable in your tongue, woman,’ it said.
    ‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ warned Granny.
    ‘Very well. My name is WxrtHltl-jwlpklz,’ said the demon smugly.

    ‘We haven’t got time to bandy legs with you all night,’ said Granny.

    Magrat blurted out, ‘You know the Fool, who lives up at the castle?’ …
    ‘It’s a steady job,’ said Nanny. ‘I’ll grant you that.’
    ‘Huh,’ said Granny. ‘A man who tinkles all day. No kind of husband for anyone, I’d say’
    *
    Nanny Ogg was also out early. She hadn’t been able to get any sleep anyway, and besides, she was worried about Greebo. Greebo was one of her few blind spots. While intellectually she would concede that he was indeed a fat, cunning, evil-smelling multiple rapist, she nevertheless instinctively pictured him as the small fluffy kitten he had been decades before. The fact that he had once chased a female wolf up a tree and seriously surprised a she-bear who had been innocently digging for roots didn’t stop her worrying that something bad might happen to him. It was generally considered by everyone else in the kingdom that the only thing that might slow Greebo down was a direct meteorite strike.
    *
    The books said that the old-time witches had sometimes danced in their shifts. Magrat had wondered about how you danced in shifts. Perhaps there wasn’t room for them all to dance at once, she’d thought.
    *
    Nanny Ogg is being held captive in a torture chamber.
    The duchess leaned forward until her big red face was inches away from Nanny’s nose.
    ‘This insouciance gives you pleasure,’ she hissed, ‘but soon you will laugh on the other side of your face!’
    ‘It’s only got this side,’ said Nanny.
    The duchess fingered a tray of implements lovingly. ‘We shall see,’ she said, picking up a pair of pliers.
    *
    ‘It’s gone too far this time,’ said a peasant. ‘All this burning and taxing and now this. I blame you witches. It’s got to stop. I know my rights.’
    ‘What rights are they?’ said Granny.
    ‘Dunnage, cowhage-in-ordinary, badinage, leftovers, scrommidge, clary and spunt,’ said the peasant promptly. ‘And acornage, every other year, and the right to keep two-thirds of a goat on the common. Until he set fire to it. It was a bloody good goat, too.’
    *
    Hour gongs were being struck all across the city and nightwatchmen were proclaiming that it was indeed midnight and also that, in the face of all the evidence, all was well. Many of them got as far as the end of the sentence before being mugged.
    *
    The River Ankh, the cloaca of half a continent, was already pretty wide and silt laden when it reached the city’s outskirts. By the time it left it didn’t so much flow as exude. Owing to the accretion of the mud of centuries the bed of the river was in fact higher than some of the low lying areas and now, with the snow melt swelling the flow, many of the low-rent districts on the Morpork side were flooded, if you can use that word for a liquid you could pick up in a net.
    *
    ‘You know, Hwel, I reckon responsible behaviour is something to get when you grow older. Like varicose veins.’
    *
    Vitoller shifted uneasily. ‘I already owe Chrystophrase the Troll more than I should.’
    ‘He’s the one that has people’s limbs torn off!’ said Tomjon.
    ‘How much do you owe him?’ said Hwel.
    ‘An arm and a leg.’
    *
    The dwarf playwright Hwel is leaving actor-manager Vitoller’s company.
    ‘I’ll miss you, laddie. I don’t mind telling you. You’ve been like a son to me. How old are you, exactly? I never did know.’
    ‘A hundred and two.’
    You’ve been like a father to me, then,’ Vitoller said.
    *
    ‘When’s this play going to be, then?’ Magrat said,