'Picture box!'
Gaffer spun the handle furiously.
'Action!'
No-one saw where the horse came from. It was just there, leaping over the heads of the crowd. It was white, with lots of impressive silver work on the bridle. Victor swung up into the saddle as it cantered past, then made it rear impressively so that it pawed the air. He drew a sword which hadn't been there a moment before.
The sword and the horse flickered almost imperceptibly.
Victor smiled. Light glinted off a tooth. Ting. A glint, but no sound; they hadn't invented sound, yet.
Believe it. That was the way. Never stop believing. Fool the eye, fool the brain.
Then he galloped between the cheering lines of spectators towards the University and the big scene.
The handleman relaxed. Ginger tapped him on the shoulder.
'If you stop turning that handle,' she said sweetly, 'I'll break your bloody neck.'
'But he's nearly out of shot-'
Ginger propelled him towards Windle Poons' ancient wheelchair and gave Windle a smile that made little clouds of wax boil out of his ears.
'Excuse me,' she said, in a sultry voice that caused all the wizards to curl their toes up in their pointy shoes, 'but could we borrow you for a minute?'
'Way-hey! Draw it mild!'
. . . whumm . . . whumm . . .
Ponder Stibbons knew about the vase, of course. All the students had wandered along to have a look at it.
He didn't pay it much attention as he sneaked along the corridor, attempting once again to make a bid for an evening's freedom .
. . . whummwhummWHUMMWHUMMWHUMMMMwhumm.
All he had to do was cut across through the cloisters and . . .
PLIB.
All eight pottery elephants shot pellets at once. The resograph exploded, turning the roof into something like a pepper shaker.
After a minute or two Ponder got up, very carefully. His hat was simply a collection of holes held together by thread. A piece had been taken out of one of his ears.
'I only wanted a drink,' he said, muzzily. 'What's wrong with that?'
The Librarian crouched on the dome of the Library, watching the crowds scurrying through the streets as the monstrous figure lurched nearer.
He was slightly surprised to see it followed by some sort of spectral horse whose hooves made no sound on the cobbles.
And that was followed by a three-wheeled bathchair that took the corner on only two of them, sparks streaming away behind it. It was loaded down with wizards, all shouting at the tops of their voices. Occasionally one of them would lose his grip and have to run behind until he could get up enough speed to leap on again.
Three of them hadn't made it. That is, one of them had made it sufficiently to get a grip on the trailing leather cover, and the other two had made it just enough to grab the robe of the one in front, so that now, every time it took a bend, a tail of three wizards going 'whaaaaa' snapped wildly across the road behind it.
There were also a number of civilians, but if anything they were shouting louder than the wizards.
The Librarian had seen many weird things in his time, but that was undoubtedly the 57th strangest.[28]
Up here the could very clearly hear the voices.