The Fifth Elephant (Discworld 24)

"Cos I"m here to help you, see? You do what I tell you, you could be out of here in half an hour. Otherwise you"re a rug on someone"s floor tomorrow. Your choice. O"course, there might not be enough of you left to make a rug."

The wolf listened to the baying of the dogs. There was no mistaking their intent.

"What did you have in mind?" it said.

A few minutes later the crowd was gently nudged aside as Carrot edged his horse towards the pen. The hubbub died. A sword on a horse always commands respect; the rider is often a mere courtesy detail, but in this case it was not so. The Watch had put the final swell and polish on Carrot"s muscles.

And there was that faint smile. It was the sort you backed away from.

"Good day. Who is in charge here?" he said.

There was a certain amount of comparison of status, and a man cautiously raised his hand.

"I"m the deputy mayor, y"honour," he said.

"And what is this event?"

"We"m about to bait a wolf, y"honour."

"Really? I myself own a wolfhound of unusual strength and prowess. May I test it against the creature?"

There was more mumbling among the bystanders, the general consensus being: why not? Anyway, there was that smile...

"Go ahead, y"honour," said the deputy mayor. ;That was Mister Vimes," said Stronginthearm. "Remember that riot in Easy Street last year? Bloke came after me with a club when I was on the ground, and Mister Vimes caught it on his arm and punched the man right in the head."

"Yeah," said Constable Hacknee, another dwarf. "When your back"s against the wall, Mister Vimes is right behind you."

"But old Fred... you all know old Fred Colon, boys," Nobby wheedled, taking a kettle off the

office stove and pouring the boiling water into a teapot. "He knows coppering inside and out."

"His kind of coppering, yeah," said Hacknee.

"I mean, he"s been a copper longer than anyone in the Watch," said Nobby.

One of the dwarfs said something in dwarfish. There were a few smiles from the shorter watchmen.

"What was that?" said Nobby.

"Well, roughly translated," said Stronginthearm, " "My bum has been a bum for a very long time but I don"t have to listen to anything it says." "

"He fined me half a dollar for mumping," said Hacknee. "Fred Colon! He practically goes on patrol with a shopping bag! And all I had was a free pint at the Bunch of Grapes and I found out that Posh Wally is suddenly flashing a lot of money lately. That"s worth knowing. I remember going out on patrol with Fred Colon when I started and you could practically see him tucking his napkin under his chin whenever we walked past a cafe. "Oh, no, Sergeant Colon, wouldn"t dream of seeing you pay." They used to lay the table when they saw him turn the corner."

"Everyone does it," said Stronginthearm.

"Captain Carrot never did," said Nobby.

"Captain Carrot was... special."

"But what am I supposed to do with this?" said Visit, waving the ink-speckled message. "Mister Vimes wants some information urgently, he says!"

Stronginthearm took the paper and read it.

"Well, this shouldn"t be hard," he said. "Old Wussie Staid in Kicklebury Street was a janitor there for years and he owes me a favour."

"If we"re going to send a clacks to Mister Vimes then we ought to tell him about the Scone and Sonky," said Reg Shoe. "You know he left a message about that. I"ve done a report."

"Why? He"s hundreds of miles away."