Unseen Academicals (Discworld 37)

'Oh, come now, Mustrum. When I left, the lads were pushing back the boundaries of knowledge. It's been a bit quiet since, I gather. By the way, this is Professor Turnipseed.'

There appeared from behind the self-styled Archchancellor of Brazeneck, like a moonlet moving out of the shadow of a gas giant, a sheepish young man who instantly reminded Ridcully of Ponder Stibbons, although for the life of him he couldn't make out why. Perhaps it was the look of someone permanently doing sums in his head, and not just proper sums either, but the sneaky sort with letters in them.

'Oh, well, you know how it is with boundaries,' Ridcully mumbled. 'You look at what's on the other side and you realize why there was a boundary in the first place. Good afternoon, Turnipseed. Your face is familiar.'

'I used to work here, sir,' said Turnipseed sheepishly.

'Oh yes, I recall. In the High Energy Magic Department, yes?'

'A coming man, our Adrian,' said the former Dean, proprietorially. 'We have our own High Energy Magic Building now, you know. We call it the Higher Energy Magic Building, but I stress that this is only to avoid confusion. No slight on good old UU is intended. Adopt, adapt, improve, that's my motto.'

Well, if you adapted it then it's now grab, copy and look innocent, Ridcully thought, but carefully. Senior wizards never rowed in public. The damage was apt to be appalling. No, politeness ruled, but with sharpened edges.

'I doubt there will be any confusion, Henry. We are the senior college, after all. And of course I am the only Archchancellor in these parts.'

'By custom and practice, Mustrum, and times are changing.'

'Or being changed, at least. But I wear the Archchancellor's Hat, Henry, as worn by my predecessors down the centuries. The Hat, Henry, of supreme authority in the affairs of the Wise, the Cunning and the Crafty. The hat, in fact, on my head.'

'It isn't, you know,' said Henry cheerfully. 'You are wearing the everyday hat that you made yourself.'

'It would be on my head if I wanted it to be!'

Henry's smile was glassy. 'Of course, Mustrum, but the authority of the Hat has often been challenged.'

'Almost correct, old chap. In fact, it is the ownership of the Hat that has, in the past, been disputed, but the Hat itself, never. Now, I note that you yourself are wearing a particularly spiffy hat of a magnificence that goes beyond the sublime, but it is just a hat, old boy, just a hat. No offence meant, of course, and I am sure that in another millennium it will have become weighted with dignity and wisdom. I can see that you have left plenty of room.'

Turnipseed decided to make a run for the lavatories right now, and with a muted apology pushed past Ridcully and sped away.

Oddly enough, the sudden lack of an audience lowered the tension rather than increased it.

Henry pulled a slim packet out of his pocket. 'Cigarette? I know that you roll your own, but Verdant and Scour make these specially for me and they are rather fine.'

Ridcully took one, because a wizard, however haughty, who would not accept a free smoke or a drink would be in his coffin, but he took care not to notice the words 'Archchancellor's Choice' in garish type on the packet.

As he handed the packet back, something small and colourful dropped out on to the floor. Henry, with an agility unexpected in a wizard so far up the main sequence as described in the well-known Owlspring/Tips Diagram, reached down quickly and snatched it up, muttering something about 'not letting it get dirty'.

'You could eat your dinner off these floors,' said Ridcully sharply, and probably would, he added to himself.

'Only the collectors get so annoyed if there is a speck of dust on them and I give mine to the butler's little boy,' Henry went on blithely. He turned the pasteboard over and frowned. 'Notable Wizards of our Time, No. 9 of 50: Dr Able Baker, BC (Hons), Fdl, Kp, PdF (escrow), Director of Blit Studies, Brazeneck. I'm sure he's already got this one.' He dropped it into a waistcoat pocket. 'Never mind, good for swapsies.'

Ridcully could assess things quite fast, especially when fuelled by banked fires of rage.

'The Wizla tobacco, snuff and rolling paper company,' he said, 'of Pseudopolis. Hmm, clever idea. Who's in this from UU?'

'Ah. Well, I have to admit that the Assembly and people of Pseudopolis are rather... patriotic in their outlook - '

'I think the word is "parochial", don't you?'

'Harsh words, considering that Ankh-Morpork's the smuggest, most self-satisfied city in the world.' This was self-evidently true, so Ridcully decided he hadn't heard it.

'You on one of these cards, then?' he grunted.

'They insisted, I'm afraid,' said Henry. 'I was born there, you see. Local boy and all that.'

'And no one from UU,' said Ridcully flatly.

'Technically no, but Professor Turnipseed is in there as the inventor of Pex.' As Henry said it, guilt and defiance fought for space in the sentence.