'But if you could just give me an idea-'
Soll firmly unhooked the man's hand from his sleeve. 'Frankly,' he said, 'I don't give a damn,' and he strode off towards the set.
The artist was left alone. He picked up his paintbrush. His lips moved silently, shaping themselves around the words.
Then he said, 'Hmm. Nice one.'
Banana N'Vectif, cunningest hunter in the great yellow plains of Klatch, held his breath as he tweezered the last piece into place. Rain drummed on the roof of his hut.
There. That was it.
He'd never done anything like this before, but he knew he was doing it right.
He'd trapped everything from zebras to thargas in his time, and what had he got to show for it? But yesterday, when he'd taken a load of skins into N'kouf, he'd heard a trader say that if any man ever built a better mousetrap, then the world would beat a path to his door.
He'd lain awake all night thinking about this. Then, in the first light of dawn, he scratched a few designs on the but wall with a stick, and got to work. He had taken the opportunity to look at a few mousetraps while he was in the town, and they were definitely less than perfect. They hadn't been built by hunters.
Now he picked up the twig and pushed it gently into the mechanism.
Snap.
Perfect.
Now, all he had to do was take it into N'kouf and see if the merchant
The rain was very loud indeed. In fact, it sounded more like
When Banana woke up he was lying in the ruins of his but and they were in a half-mile wide swathe of trodden mud.
He looked muzzily at what remained of his home. He looked at the brown scar that stretched from horizon to horizon. He looked at the dark, muddy cloud just visible at one end of it.
Then he looked down. The better mousetrap was now a rather nice two-dimensional design, squashed into the middle of an enormous footprint.
He said, 'I didn't know it was that good.'
According to the history books, the decisive battle that ended the Ankh-Morpork Civil War was fought between two handfuls of bone-weary men in a swamp early one misty morning and, although one side claimed victory, ended with a practical score of Humans 0, ravens 1,000, which is the case with most battles.
Something that both Dibblers were agreed on was that, if they'd been in charge, no-one would have been able to get away with such a low-grade war. It was a crime that people should have been allowed to stage a major turning-point in the history of the city without using thousands of people and camels and ditches and earthworks and siege-engines and trebuckets and horses and banners.
'And in a bloody fog, too,' said Gaffer. 'No thought about light levels.'
He surveyed the proposed field of battle, shading his eyes from the sun with one hand. There would be eleven handlemen working on this one, from every conceivable angle. One by one they held up their thumbs.
Gaffer rapped on the picture box in front of him.
'Ready, lads?' he said.
There was a chorus of squeaks.
'Good lads,' he said. 'Get this one right and thee can have an extra lizard for thy tea.'
He grasped the handle with one hand and picked up a megaphone with the other.
'Ready when you are, Mr Dibbler!' he yelled.
C.M.O.T. nodded and was about to raise his hand when Soll's arm shot out and grabbed it. The nephew was staring intently at the ranged ranks of horsemen.
'Just one moment,' he said levelly, and then cupped his hands and raised his voice to a shout. 'Hey, you there! Fifteenth knight along! Yes, you! Would you mind unfurling your banner, please? Thank you. Could you please report to Mrs Cosmopilite for a new one. Thank you.'