'He means sexual magnetism,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, happily. 'The lure of wanton soft bosoms and huge pulsating thighs, and the forbidden fruits of desire which-'
A couple of wizards carefully moved their chairs away from him.
'Ah, sex,' said the Dean of Pentacles, interrupting the Lecturer in Recent Runes in mid-sigh. 'Far too much of it these days, in my opinion.'
'Oh, I don't know,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. He looked wistful.
The noise woke up Windle Poons, who had been dozing in his wheelchair by the fire. There was always a roaring fire in the Uncommon Room, summer or winter.
'Wassat?' he said.
The Dean leaned towards an ear.
'I was saying', he said loudly, 'that we didn't know the meaning of the word “sex” when we were young.'
'That's true. That's very true,' said Poons. He stared reflectively at the flames. 'Did we ever, mm, find out, do you remember?'
There was a moment's silence.
'Say what you like, she's a fine figure of a young woman,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes defiantly.
'Several young women,' said the Dean.
Windle Poons focused unsteadily on the poster.
'Who's the young feller?' he said.
'What young feller?' said several wizards.
'He's in the middle of the picture,' said Poons. 'He's holding her in his arms.'
They looked again. 'Oh, him,' said the Chair, dismissively.
'Seems to me I've, mm, seen him before,' said Poons.
'My dear Poons, I hope you haven't been sneaking off to the moving pictures,' said the Dean, grinning at the others. 'You know it's demeaning for a wizard to patronize the common entertainments. The Archchancellor would be very angry with us.'
'Wassat?' said Poons, cupping a hand to his ear.
'He does look a bit familiar, now that you mention it,' said the Dean, peering at the poster.
The Lecturer in Recent Runes put his head on one side.
'It's young Victor, isn't it?' he said.
'Eh?' said Poons.
'You know, you could be right,' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. 'He had the same type of weedy moustache.'
was a distant bellowing as the herd approached.
Eventually the first troll said, very slowly, because it had been working this out for a long time. 'What do you get, right, what do you get if, you cross . . . a mountain with a elephant?'
It never got an answer.
The yetis had been right.
When five hundred crude two-elephant bobsleighs crested the ridge ten feet away at sixty miles an hour, their strapped-on occupants trumpeting in panic, they never saw the yetis until they were right on top of them.