"Well, she did use to be called Candi, sarge, but then she heard that broccoli is better for you-"
"Corporal Nobbs!"
The sound appeared to be coming from under the table.
Nobby stared at Fred Colon, and then looked down. "Yes?" he ventured, with caution.
"This is Sergeant Angua," said the floor.
"Oh?" said Nobby.
"What is this place?" the voice continued.
"The Pink PussyCat Club, sergeant," said Nobby obediently.
"Oh, gods. There was some conversation down below, and then the voice said: "Are there women up there?"
"Yes, sergeant. Er, what are you doing down there, sarge?" "Giving you orders, Nobby," said the voice from below. "Are there women up there?"
"Yes, sarge. Lots."
"Good. Please ask one to come down into the beer cellar. We"ll need a couple of buckets of warm water and some towels, got that?"
Nobby was aware that the musicians had stopped playing and Tawneee had paused in mid drop-and-split. Everyone was listening to the talking floor.
"Yes, sergeant," said Nobby. "I"ve got it."
"And some clean clothes. And" - there was subterranean whispering -"make that several buckets of water. And a scrubbing brush. And a comb. And another comb. And more towels. Oh, and two pairs of shoes, size six and ... four and a half? Really? Okay. And is Fred Colon with you, or is that a stupid question?"
Fred cleared his throat. "I"m here, sergeant," he reported. "But I only came along to-"
"Good. I want to borrow a set of your stripes. I"ve got a bad feeling about the next few hours and I don"t want anyone to forget I"m a sergeant. Got that, the pair of you?"
"It"s full moon," Fred whispered to Nobby, as one man to another, and then he said aloud: "Yes, sergeant. This may take a while-"
"No! It won"t. Because you"ve got a werewolf and a vampire down here, understand? I"m having a really bad hair day and she"s got toothache! We come up in ten minutes looking human or we come up anyway! What?" There was more whispering. "Why a beetroot? Why in gods" names is a girly show likely to contain a beetroot? What? Okay. Will an apple do? Nobby, Lance-Constable Humpeding needs an apple, urgently. Or something else that she can bite. Now, jump to it!"
Coffee was only a way of stealing time that should by rights belong to your slightly older self. Vimes drank two cups, and had a wash and at least an attempt at a shave that made him feel quite human if he ignored the sensation that parts of his head were stuffed with warm cotton wool. At last, deciding that he felt as good as it was going to get and could probably handle quite long questions, he was ushered into the Oblong Office of the Patrician of Ankh-Morpork.
"Ah, commander," said Lord Vetinari, looking up after a considered interval and pushing aside some paperwork. "Thank you for coming. It seems that congratulations are in order. So I am told."
"And why"s that, sir?" said Vimes, putting on his special blank talking-to-Vetinari face.
"Come now, Vimes. Yesterday it looked as if we would be having a species war right in the middle of the city, and suddenly we are not. Those gangs were quite fearsome, I gather."
"Most of "em were asleep or squabbling amongst themselves by the time we arrived, sir. We just had to tidy them away," Vimes volunteered.
"Yes indeed," said Vetinari. "It was quite astonishing, really. Do sit down, by the way. It really is not necessary for you to stand in front of me like a corporal on a charge." "Don"t know what you mean, sir," said Vimes, collapsing gratefully into a chair.
"You don"t? I was referring, Vimes, to the speed with which both parties managed to incapacitate themselves with strong liquor at the same time ... ?"
"I wouldn"t know anything about that, sir: That was an automatic reaction; it made life simpler.
"No? It appears, Vimes, that whilst steeling themselves for the fracas to come, both the trolls and the dwarfs came into possession of what I assume they thought was beer ... ?"
"They had been on the pi- been drinking all day, sir," Vimes pointed out.
"Indeed, Vimes, and possibly that is why the dwarf contingent were less than cautious in drinking copiously from beer that had been considerably ... fortified? Areas of Sator Square, I gather, still smell faintly of apples, Vimes. One could come to believe, therefore, that what they were drinking was in fact a mixture of strong beer and stumble, which is, as you know, distilled from apples-"