I called her a stupid girl, thought Magrat. Royalty is rubbing off on me.
“Oh, well,” she said, “where've we got to?”
“We're going to need two thousand yards of the blue chintz material with the little white flowers,” said Millie.
“And we haven't even measured half the windows yet,” said Magrat, rolling up the tape measure.
She looked down the length of the Long Gallery. The thing about it, the thing that made it so noticeable, the first thing anyone noticed about it, was that it was very long. It shared certain distinctive traits with the Great Hall and the Deep Dungeons. Its name was a perfectly accurate description. And it would be, as Nanny Ogg would say, a bugger to carpet.
o;You little bastard,” he said. “I'm going to knock your block off.”
He peered closer.
“What's that on your back? A hump?”
“Ah, you've noticed the stepladder,” said the low highwayman. “Let me demonstrate-”
“What's happening?” said Ridcully, back in the coach.
“Um, a dwarf has just climbed up a small stepladder and kicked the coachman in the middle of the road,” said Ponder.
“That's something you don't see every day,” said Ridcully. He looked happy. Up to now, the journey had been quite uneventful.
“Now he's coming toward us.”
“Oh, good.” The highwayman stepped over the groaning body of the driver and marched toward the door of the coach, dragging his stepladder behind him.
He opened the door.
“Your money or, I'm sorry to say, your-”
A blast of octarine fire blew his hat off. The dwarfs expression did not change. ' “I wonder if I might be allowed to rephrase my demands?”
Ridcully looked the elegantly dressed stranger up and down or, rather, down and further down.
“You don't look like a dwarf,” he said, “apart from the height, that is.”
“Don't look like a dwarf apart from the height?”
“I mean, the helmet and iron boots department is among those you are lacking in,” said Ridcully.
The dwarf bowed and produced a slip of pasteboard from one grubby but lace-clad sleeve.
“My card,” he said.
It read:
Giamo Casanunda
WORLD'S SECOND GREATEST LOVER
We Never Sleep
FINEST SWORDSMAN - SOLDIER OF FORTUNE
OUTRAGEOUS LIAR - STEPLADDERS REPAIRED
Ponder peered over Ridcully's shoulder.