Rincewind hesitated, desperately trying to imagine what Twoflower was getting at.
'What?' he said, giving in.
'He should have a red hat,' said Twoflower. 'And he certainly ought to be cleaner and more, more sort of jolly. He doesn't look like any sort of gnome to me.'
'What are you going on about?'
'Look at that beard,' said Twoflower sternly. 'I've seen better beards on a piece of cheese.'
'Look, he's six inches high and lives in a mushroom,' snarled Rincewind. 'Of course he's a bloody gnome.'
'We've only got his word for it.'
Rincewind looked down at the gnome.
'Excuse me,' he said. He took Twoflower to the other side of the clearing.
'Listen,' he said between his teeth. 'If he was fifteen feet tall and said he was a giant we'd only have his word for that too, wouldn't we?'
'He could be a goblin,' said Twoflower defiantly.
Rincewind looked back at the tiny figure, which was industriously picking its nose.
'Well?' he said. 'So what? Gnome, goblin, pixie – so what?'
'Not a pixie,' said Twoflower firmly. 'Pixies, they wear these sort of green combinations and they have pointy caps and little knobbly antenna thingies sticking out of their heads. I've seen pictures.'
'Where?'
Twoflower hesitated, and looked at his feet. 'I think it was called the “mutter, mutter, mutter.” '
'The what? Called the what?'
The little man took a sudden interest in the backs of his hands.
'The Little Folks' Book of Flower Fairies,' he muttered.
Rincewind looked blank.
'It's a book on how to avoid them?' he said.
'Oh no,' said Twoflower hurriedly. It tells you where to look for them. I can remember the pictures now.' A dreamy look came over his face, and Rincewind groaned inwardly. There was even a special fairy that came and took your teeth away.'
'What, came and pulled out your actual teeth – ?'
'No, no, you're wrong, I mean after they'd fallen out, what you did was, you put the tooth under your pillow and the fairy came and took it away and left a rhinu piece.'
'Why?'
'Why what?'
'Why did it collect teeth?'
'It just did.'
Rincewind formed a mental picture of some strange entity living in a castle made of teeth. It was the kind of mental picture you tried to forget. Unsuccessfully.
'Urgh,' he said.