Pyramids (Discworld 7)

He noticed a skinny little man sitting opposite him, chewing primly on some anonymous tentacle. Apart from Pthagonal the geometrician, who was now gloomily calculating the radius of his plate, he was the only person not speaking his mind at the top of his voice. Sometimes he'd make little notes on a piece of parchment and slip it into his toga.

Teppic leaned across. Further down the table Iesope, encouraged by occasional olive stones and bread rolls, started a long fable about a fox, a turkey, a goose and a wolf, who had a wager to see who could stay longest underwater with heavy weights tied to their feet.

'Excuse me,' said Teppic, raising his voice above the din. 'Who are you?'

The little man gave him a shy look. He had extremely large ears. In a certain light, he could have been mistaken for a very thin jug.

'I'm Endos,' he said.

'Why aren't you philosophising?'

Endos sliced a strange mollusc.

'I'm not a philosopher, actually,' he said.

'Or a humorous playwright or something?' said Teppic.

'I'm afraid not. I'm a Listener. Endos the Listener, I'm known as.'

'That's fascinating,' said Teppic automatically. 'What does that involve?'

'Listening.'

'Just listening?'

'That's what they pay me for,' said Endos. 'Sometimes I nod. Or smile. Or nod and smile at the same time. Encouragingly, you know. They like that.'

Teppic felt he was called upon to comment at this point. 'Gosh,' he said.

Endos gave him an encouraging nod, and a smile that suggested that of all the things Endos could be doing in the world right at this minute there was nothing so basically riveting as listening to Teppic. It was something about his ears. They appeared to be a vast aural black hole, begging to be filled up with words. Teppic felt an overpowering urge to tell him all about his life and hopes and dreams...

'I bet,' he said, 'that they pay you an awful lot of money.

Endos gave him a heartening smile.

'Have you listened to Copolymer tell his story lots of times?'

Endos nodded and smiled, although there was a faint trace of pain right behind his eyes.

'I expect,' said Teppic, 'that your ears develop protective rough surfaces after a while?'

Endos nodded. 'Do go on,' he urged.

Teppic glanced across at Pthagonal, who was moodily drawing right angles in his taramasalata.

'I'd love to stay and listen to you listening to me all day,' he said. 'But there's a man over there I'd like to see.'

'That's amazing,' said Endos, making a short note and turning his attention to a conversation further along the table. A philosopher had averred that although truth was beauty, beauty was not necessarily truth, and a fight was breaking out. Endos listened carefully.[27]

Teppic wandered along the table to where Pthagonal was sitting in unrelieved misery, and currently peering suspiciously over the crust of a pie.

Teppic looked over his shoulder.

'I think I saw something moving in there,' he said.

'Ah,' said the geometrician, taking the cork out of an amphora with his teeth. 'The mysterious young man in black from the lost kingdom.'

'I was hoping you could help me find it again?' said Teppic.