The Wit And Wisdom Of Discworld

man again but noo he’s walkin’, an’ next he’s standin’ still again, an’ next is the comb, an’ the up-an’-doon ziggy-zaggy letter, and the man’s got his arms oot, and then there’s me, and that ziggy-zaggy and we end the line with the comb again … an’ on the next line we starts wi’ the bendy hook, that’s the letter roound as the sun, them’s twa men sittin’ doon, there’s the letter reaching ooot tae the sky, then there’s a space ‘cos there’s nae letter, then there’s the snaky again, an’ the letter like a hoose frame, and then there’s the letter that’s me, aye, an’ another fella sitting doon, an’ another big roound letter, and, ha, oor ol’ friend, the fat man walkin’! The End!’
    He stood back, hands on hips, and demanded: ‘There! Is that readin’ I just did, or wuz it no’?’
    (And the words were: SHEEP’S WOOL, TURPENTINE, JOLLY SAILOR.)
    *
    Everyone in the mountains had heard of Mistress Weatherwax. If you didn’t have respect, she said, you didn’t have anything.
    They were treated like royalty -not the sort who get dragged off to be beheaded or have something nasty done with a red-hot poker, but the other sort, when people walk away dazed saying, ‘She actually said hello to me, very graciously! I will never wash my hand again!’
    *
    ‘Let’s get moving.’
    ‘We haven’t even had anything to eat!’ said Tiffany, running after her.
    ‘I had a lot of voles last night,’ said Mistress Weatherwax over her shoulder.
    ‘Yes, but you didn’t actually eat them, did you?’ said Tiffany. ‘It was the owl that actually ate them.’
    ‘Technic’ly yes,’ Mistress Weatherwax admitted. ‘But if you think you’ve been eating voles all night you’d be amazed how much you don’t want to eat anything next morning.’

    For an old woman Mistress Weatherwax could move quite fast. She strode over the moors as if distance was a personal insult.

    There were no judges, and no prizes. The Witch Trials weren’t like that, as Petulia had said. The point was to show what you could do, to show what you’d become, so that people would go away thinking things like ‘That Caramella Bottlethwaite, she’s coming along nicely’. It wasn’t a competition, honestly. No one won.
    And if you believed that you’d believe that the moon is pushed around the sky by a goblin called Wilberforce.
    *
    ‘If you don’t know when to be a human being, you don’t know when to be a witch. And if you’re too afraid of goin’ astray, you won’t go anywhere.’
    *
    ‘I’m clever enough to know how you manage not to think of a pink rhinoceros if someone says “pink rhinoceros”,’ she managed to say aloud.
    ‘Ah, that’s deep magic, that is,’ said Granny Weatherwax.
    ‘No. It’s not. You don’t know what a rhinoceros looks like, do you?’
    Sunlight filled the clearing as the old witch laughed, as clear as a downland stream.
    ‘That’s right!’ she said.

 
    M OIST von Lipwig is a con artist on …
    … an and a fraud and a man faced with a life choice: be hanged, or put Ankh-Morpork’s ailing postal service back on its feet.
    It’s a tough decision.
    But he’s got to see that the mail gets through, come rain, hail, sleet, dog the Post Office Workers’ Friendly and Benevolent Society, the evil chairman of the Grand Trunk Semaphore Company, and a midnight killer killer.
    Getting a date with Adora Belle Dearheart would be nice, too.
    They say that the prospect of being hanged in the morning concentrates a man’s mind wonderfully; unfortunately, what the mind inevitably concentrates on is that it is in a body that, in the morning, is going to be hanged.
    *
    ‘I’d get some rest if I was you, sir, ‘cos we’re hanging you in half an hour,’ said Mr Wilkinson.
    ‘Hey, don’t I get breakfast?’
    ‘Breakfast isn’t until seven o’clock, sir.’
    *
    ‘I’m offering you a job, Mr Lipwig, that of Postmaster General of the Ankh-Morpork Post Office. The job, Mr Lipwig, involves the refurbishment and running of the city’s postal service, preparation of the international packets, maintenance of Post Office property, et cetera, et cetera—’
    ‘If you stick a broom up my arse I could probably sweep the floor, too,’ said Moist.
    Lord Vetinari gave him a long, long look.
    ‘Well, if you wish,’ he said, and turned to a hovering clerk. ‘Drumknott, does the housekeeper have a store cupboard on this floor, do you know?’
    *
    ‘I believe in