Men at Arms (Discworld 15)

Angua wondered if there was ever a time when anyone in the Watch was ever, really, off duty. She couldn't imagine Sergeant Colon in civilian clothes. When you were a Watchman, you were a Watchman all the time, which was a bit of a bargain for the city since it only paid you to be a Watchman for ten hours of every day.

'All right,' she said. 'I can use a sheet off the bed. You shut your eyes.'

'Why?' said Gaspode.

'For decency's sake!'

Gaspode looked blank. Then he said, 'Oh, I get it. Yes, I can see your point, def'nitely. Dear me, you can't have me looking at a naked woman, oh no. Oggling. Gettin' ideas. Deary deary me.'

'You know what I mean!'

'Can't say I do. Can't say I do. Clothing has never been what you might call a thingy of dog wossname.' Gaspode scratched his ear. 'Two metasyntactic variables there. Sorry.'

'It's different with you. You know what I am. Anyway, dogs are naturally naked.'

'So're humans—'

Angua changed.

Gaspode's ear flattened against his head. Despite himself, he whimpered.

Angua stretched.

'You know the worst bit?' she said. 'It's my hair. You can hardly get the tangles out. And my feet are covered in mud.'

She tugged a sheet off the bed and draped it around herself as a makeshift toga.

'There,' she said, 'you see worse on the street every day. Gaspode?'

'What?'

'You can open your eyes now.'

Gaspode blinked. Angua in both shapes was OK to look at, but the second or two in between, as the morphic signal hunted between stations, was not a sight you wished to see on a full stomach.

'I thought you rolled around on the floor grunting and growing hair and stretching,' he whimpered.

Angua peered at her hair in the mirror while her night vision lasted.

'Whatever for?'

'Does . . . all that stuff . . . hurt?'

'It's a bit like a whole-body sneeze. You'd think he'd have a comb, wouldn't you? I mean, a comb? Everyone's got a comb . . .'

A really . . . big . . . sneeze?'

'Even a clothes brush would be something.'

They froze as the door creaked open.

Carrot walked in. He didn't notice them in the gloom, but trudged to the table. There was a flare and a reek of sulphur as he lit first a match and then a candle.

He removed his helmet, and then sagged as if he'd finally allowed a weight to drop on his shoulders.

They heard him say: 'It can't be right!'

'What can't?' said Angua.