The Wit And Wisdom Of Discworld

butler:
    ‘Tell me, Willikins, did you fight much when you were a kid? Were you in a gang or anything?’
    ‘I was privileged to belong to the Shamlegger Street Rude Boys, sir,’ said the butler.
    ‘Really?’ said Vimes, genuinely impressed. ‘They were pretty tough nuts, as I recall.’
    ‘Thank you, sir,’ said Willikins smoothly. ‘I pride myself I used to give somewhat more than I got if we needed to discuss the vexed area of turf issues with the young men from Rope Street. Stevedore’s hooks were their weapon of choice, as I recall.’
    ‘And yours … ?’ said Vimes, agog.
    ‘A cap-brim sewn with sharpened pennies, sir.’
    ‘Ye gods, man! You could put someone’s eye out with something like that.’
    ‘With care, sir, yes,’ said Willikins, meticulously folding a towel.
    *
    Vimes knew all the arguments for having different species in the Watch. They were good arguments. Some of the arguments against them were bad arguments. There were trolls in the Watch, plenty of dwarfs, one werewolf, three golems, an Igor and, not least, Corporal Nobbst † …
    *
    Fred Colon was not the greatest gift to policing. He was slow, stolid and not very imaginative. But he’d plodded his way around the streets for so long that he’d left a groove and somewhere inside that stupid fat head was something very smart, which sniffed the wind and heard the buzz and read the writing on the wall, admittedly doing the last bit with its lips moving.
    *
    To look at Fred Colon, you’d see a man who might well, if he fell over a cliff, have to stop and ask directions on the way down.
    *
    ‘… that girl you’re going out with … She’s nearly six feet tall and she’s got a bosom like … well, she’s a big girl, Nobby’ Fred Colon was at a loss. ‘She told me, Nobby, that she’s been Miss May on the centrefold of Girls, Giggles and Garters] Well, I mean …!’
    ‘What do you mean, sarge? Anyway, she wasn’t just Miss May, she was the first week in June as well,’ Nobby pointed out. ‘It was the only way they had room.’
    ‘Err, well, I ask you,’ Fred floundered, ‘is a girl who displays her body for money the right kind of wife for a copper? Ask yourself that!’
    Nobby’s face wrinkled up in deep thought.
    ‘Is this a trick question, sarge?’ he said, at last.
    *
    Corporal Nobbs attends a burglary at the Royal Art Museum.
    ‘Hey, this must be a clue, sarge!’ said Nobby. ‘Look, someone dumped a load of stinking ol’ rubbish here!’
    ‘Don’t touch that, please!’ said Sir Reynold, rushing over. ‘That’s Don’t Talk to Me About Mondays! It’s Daniellarina Pouter’s most controversial hwork!’
    ‘It’s only a lot of old rubbish,’ Nobby protested, backing away.
    ‘Art is greater than the sum of its mere mechanical components, corporal,’ said the curator.
    ‘What about this one, then?’ said Nobby, pointing to the adjacent plinth. ‘It’s just a big stake with a nail in it! Is this art, too?’
    ‘Freedom? If it hwas ever on the market, it hwould probableah fetch thirty thousand dollars,’ said Sir Reynold.
    ‘For a bit of wood with a nail in it?’ said Fred Colon. ‘Who did it?’
    ‘After he viewed Don’t Talk to Me About Mondays! Lord Vetinari graciously had Ms Pouter nailed to the stake by her ear,’ said Sir Reynold. ‘However, she did manage to pull free during the afternoon.’
    ‘I bet she was mad!’ said Nobby.
    ‘Not after she hwon several awards for it. I believe she’s planning to nail herself to several other things. It could be a very exciting exhibition.’
    *
    Colon knew in his heart that spinning upside down around a pole wearing a costume you could floss with definitely was not Art, and being painted lying on a bed wearing nothing but a smile and a small bunch of grapes was good solid Art, but putting your finger on why this was the case was a bit tricky.
    *
    ‘Dave said the government hushed it up.’
    ‘Yeah, but your mate Dave says the government always hushes things up, Nobby’ said Fred.
    ‘Well, they do.’
    ‘Except he always gets to hear about ‘em, and he never gets hushed up,’ said Fred.
    ‘I know you like to point the finger of scoff, sarge, but there’s a lot goes on that we don’t know about.’
    ‘Like what, exactly?’ Colon retorted. ‘Name me one thing that’s going on that you don’t know about.’
    *
    ‘Don’t try to put me at my ease,’ said Vimes. ‘It makes me nervous when people do that.’
    *
    Coppers