The World of Poo

I help you clean the animals’ cages?’ asked Geoffrey, seeing a definite poo opportunity.
     
    ‘Well, I’ve been round the hippos,’ said the old man, ‘but they’ll probably start again soon. You could give me a hand with the wyvern if you like, he always needs scraping out.’
    Geoffrey and the old man walked towards a cage where a miserable-looking creature lay slumped on damp straw. ‘Here, use this,’ said the old man, handing Geoffrey a flat wooden shovel. Just scrape his doings into that bucket there.’

    Geoffrey did as instructed and contrived at the same time to get a small amount of the surprisingly green poo into one of his lined pockets.
    They wandered slowly back towards the hippos. ‘Oh no, here we go, look out,’ said Joseph. ‘Mind your back against the wall, just stand with me in the corner here and we should be all right.’
    Geoffrey watched with amazement as one of the hippos emerged from the pond and started whirling his short tail round like a windmill, spraying poo in a wide arc. 3
    ‘Goodness, do they always do that?’ asked Geoffrey.
    ‘Mostly they do,’ said the old man. ‘I cleans up what I can, but sometimes I can’t reach because it goes so high.’
    Geoffrey looked at the wall behind him and sure enough there were lumps of dried hippo poo plastered across the stones above him. The old man pushed the broom across the yard. ‘I’ll move what I can now,’ he said, ‘because once it sets it’s a bugger to shift.’ Geoffrey managed to dislodge a dried lump and secrete it in another of his jacket pockets.
    He looked hopefully at the morpork still sitting on the old man’s shoulder. The owl, somehow knowing what was required, hunched down and obliged by doing a poo, which landed on the old man’s back.
    ‘Oh dear,’ said Geoffrey, suppressing a smile, ‘that owl’s done a poo on your jacket. Would you like me to wipe it off?’
    He was just scraping his morpork specimen into yet another pocket when Sir Harry emerged into the yard. ‘Ready to go, Geoffrey?’ Sir Harry asked, taking in the scene.
    ‘Yes, thank you,’ said Geoffrey. And so they climbed into the coach and swiftly set off for Nonesuch Street.
    ‘Well, you certainly take your hobby seriously, young man,’ said Sir Harry. ‘I like a boy with purpose. How would you like to visit my yard tomorrow? I’ll send a coach to pick you up bright and early and we can go down the river together in my launch.’
    ‘I’d like that more than anything in the world,’ said Geoffrey, enthusiastically.
    ‘Very well. We’ll check with Grand-mama when we drop you off,’ said Sir Harry.

    Grand-mama came to the door as they arrived back home. ‘That is most kind of you, Sir Harry,’ she said, when Sir Harry proposed tomorrow’s outing. ‘I know Geoffrey has become very interested in your enterprise while he has been staying here in Ankh-Morpork, and as his visit’s coming to an end it’s a very good opportunity for him. Geoffrey, I think you probably need to take your new acquisitions into your museum, don’t you? And emphatically refrain from leaving them anywhere in the house,’ she added, her nose twitching in distaste. ‘And while you’re there ask Plain Old Humphrey to help you wash out your pockets with Doctor Painforth’s Hygienic Restorative.’
    1 Working at night, gongers or gongfermors are sometimes known as ‘night-men’. It requires a steady hand, nerves of steel and the sense of smell of a turnip to do this job, although the rewards can be great: just consider what may be lost down a privy at night with the only light a candle flame guttering in the wind. I mean, who’s going to notice if a locket has gone or even a ring slipped from a cold finger in those conditions? Where there’s muck there’s brass, as they used to say, or even better than brass, if you’re lucky.
    2 Harry King smoked cigars all the time, apparently, but given the way he earned his money, the acrid cigar smoke probably counted as fresh air.
    3 Hippos really are the most dangerous of animals, and at both ends. Not only can they move very quickly to close their jaws on the unwary swimmer, but they can go on to spray any unfortunate onlooker with poo by whirling their tails like propellers as they excrete. Zoologists would say that this is behaviour designed to mark their territory. The author thinks that it is one of nature’s more interesting jokes.

AN ADVENTURE WITH SIR HARRY KING
    THE DOORBELL RANG at 9