The Wit And Wisdom Of Discworld

stayed alive by trickery. That’s how it worked. You had your Watch Houses with the big blue lights outside, and you made certain there were always burly watchmen visible in the big public places, and you swanked around like you owned the place. But you didn’t own it. It was all smoke and mirrors. You magicked a little policeman intoeveryone’s head. You relied on people giving in, knowing the rules. But in truth a hundred well-armed people could wipe out the Watch, if they knew what they were doing. Once some madman finds out that a copper taken unawares dies just like anyone else, the spell is broken.
    *
    Ankh-Morpork was built on Ankh-Morpork. Everyone knew that. They had been building with stone here ten thousand years ago. As the annual flooding of the Ankh brought more silt, so the city had risen on its walls until attics had become cellars. Even at basement level today, it was always said, a man with a pickaxe and a good sense of direction could cross the city by knocking his way through underground walls, provided he could also breathe mud.
    *
    Blackboard monitor. Well, he had been, in that little street school more than forty-five years ago. Mum had insisted. Gods knew where she’d sprung the penny a day it cost, although most of the time Dame Slightly had been happy to accept payment in old clothes and firewood. Numbers, letters, weights, measures; it was not what you’d call a rich curriculum. Vimes had attended for nine months or so, until the streets demanded he learn much harder and sharper lessons. But, for a while, he’d been trusted to hand out the slates and clean the blackboard. Oh, the heady, strutting power of it, when you’re six years old!
    *
    Vimes carefully lifted the top of the bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich, and smiled inwardly. Good old Cheery. She knew what a Vimes BLT was all about. It was about having to lift up quite a lot of crispy bacon before you found the miserable skulking vegetables. You might never notice them at all.

    A young man of godlike proportions † was standing in the doorway.

    Vimes takes parental duty seriously …
    He’d be home in time. Would a minute have mattered? No, probably not, although Young Sam appeared to have a very accurate internal clock. Possibly even two minutes would be okay. Three minutes, even. You could go to five, perhaps. But that was just it. If you could go to fiveminutes then you’d go to ten, then half an hour, a couple of hours … and not see your son all evening. So that was that. Six o’clock, prompt. Every day. Read to Young Sam. No excuses. He’d promised himself that. No excuses. No excuses at all. Once you had a good excuse, you opened the door to bad excuses.
    *
    and the book he reads …
    It was called Where’s My Cow?
    The unidentified complainant had lost their cow. That was the story, really.
    Page one started promisingly:
    Where’s my cow?
Is that my cow?
It goes, ‘Baa!’
It is a sheep!
That’s not my cow!
    Then the author began to get to grips with their material:
    Where’s my cow?
Is that my cow?
It goes, ‘Neigh!’
It is a horse!
That’s not my cow!
    At this point the author had reached an agony of creation and was writing from the racked depths of their soul.
    Where’s my cow?
Is that my cow?
It goes, ‘Hruuugh!’
It is a hippopotamus!
That’s not my cow!
    (Rest assured: the cow is found.)
    *
    ‘When did you last eat?’ said Sybil.
    ‘I had a lettuce, tomato and bacon sandwich, dear,’ Vimes said, endeavouring by tone of voice to suggest that the bacon had been a mere condiment rather than a slab barely covered by the bread.
    ‘I expect you jolly well did,’ said Sybil, rather more accurately conveying the fact that she didn’t believe a word of it.

    Tomato ketchup is not a vegetable.

    ‘What’s the password?’ Vimes said quickly.
    The shadowy figure, who was cloaked and hooded, hesitated.
    ‘Pathword? Ecthcuthe me, I’ve got it written down thomewhere—’
    ‘Okay, Igor, come on in,’ said Carrot.
    ‘How did you know it wath me, thur?’ said Igor.
    *
    ‘I’m going to have a look for Angua,’ said Carrot. ‘She hasn’t slept in her bed.’
    ‘But at this time of the month—’
    ‘I know, sir. She hasn’t slept in her basket, either.’
    *
    Vetinari drummed his fingers on the table. ‘What would you do if I asked you an outright question, Vimes?’
    ‘I’d tell you a downright lie, sir’
    ‘Then I will not do so,’ said Vetinari, smiling faintly.
    ‘Thank you,