Men at Arms (Discworld 15)

'Aren't you going to chase the man?' said Angua, running to keep up.

'No point,' said Carrot, stepping sideways into an alley that was so narrow as to be barely visible. He strolled between the damp, moss-grown walls, in deep shadow.

'Interesting thing,' he said. 'I bet there's not many people know that you can get to Zephire Street from Broad Way. You ask anyone. They'll say you can't get out of the other end of Shirt Alley. But you can because, all you do, you go up Mormius Street, and then you can squeeze between these bollards here into Borborygmic Lane – good, aren't they, very good iron – and here we are in Whilom Alley—'

He wandered to the end of the alley and stood listening for a while.

'What are we waiting for?' said Angua.

There was the sound of running feet. Carrot leaned against the wall, and stuck out one arm into Zephire Street. There was a thud. Carrot's arm didn't move an inch. It must have been like running into a girder.

They looked down at the unconscious figure. Silver dollars rolled across the cobbles.

'Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,' said Carrot. 'Poor old Here'n'now. He promised me he was going to give it up, too. Oh well He picked up a leg.

'How much money?' he said.

'Looks like three dollars,' said Angua.

'Well done. The exact amount.'

'No, the shopkeeper said—'

'Come on. Back to the Watch House. Come on, Here'n'now. It's your lucky day.'

'Why is it his lucky day?' said Angua. 'He was caught, wasn't he?'

'Yes. By us. Thieves' Guild didn't get him first. They aren't so kind as us.'

Here'n'now's head bounced from cobblestone to cobblestone.

'Pinching three dollars and then trotting straight home,' sighed Carrot. 'That's Here'n'now. Worst thief in the world.'

'But you said Thieves' Guild—'

'When you've been here a while, you'll understand how it all works,' said Carrot. Here'n'now's head banged on the kerb. 'Eventually,' Carrot added. 'But it all does work. You'd be amazed. It all works. I wish it didn't. But it does.'

While Here'n'now was being mildly concussed on the way to the safety of the Watch's jail, a down was being killed.

He was ambling along an alley with the assurance of one who is fully paid up this year with the Thieves' Guild when a hooded figure stepped out in front of him.

'Beano?'

'Oh, hello . . . it's Edward, right?'

The figure hesitated.

'I was just going back to the Guild,' said Beano.

The hooded figure nodded.

'Are you OK?' said Beano.

'I'm sorry about th-is,' it said. 'But it is for the good of the city. It is nothing p-ersonal.'

He stepped behind the clown. Beano felt a crunch, and then his own personal internal universe switched off.

Then he sat up.