Moving Pictures (Discworld 10)

'Who's the young feller?' he said.

'What young feller?' said several wizards.

'He's in the middle of the picture,' said Poons. 'He's holding her in his arms.'

They looked again. 'Oh, him,' said the Chair, dismissively.

'Seems to me I've, mm, seen him before,' said Poons.

'My dear Poons, I hope you haven't been sneaking off to the moving pictures,' said the Dean, grinning at the others. 'You know it's demeaning for a wizard to patronize the common entertainments. The Archchancellor would be very angry with us.'

'Wassat?' said Poons, cupping a hand to his ear.

'He does look a bit familiar, now that you mention it,' said the Dean, peering at the poster.

The Lecturer in Recent Runes put his head on one side.

'It's young Victor, isn't it?' he said.

'Eh?' said Poons.

'You know, you could be right,' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. 'He had the same type of weedy moustache.'

'Who's this?' said Poons.

'But he was a student. He could have been a wizard,' said the Dean. 'Why would he want to go off and fondle young women?'

'It's a Victor all right, but not our Victor. Says here he's “Victor Maraschino”,' said the Chair.

'Oh, that's just a click name,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes airily. 'They all have funny names like that. Delores De Syn and Blanche Languish and Rock Cliffe and so on . . . ' He realized that they were looking at him accusingly. 'Or so I'm told,' he added lamely. 'By the porter. He goes to see a click nearly every night.'

'What're you on about?' said Poons, waving his walking stick in the air.

'The cook goes every night, too,' said the Chair. 'So do most of the kitchen staff. You just try getting so much as a ham sandwich after nine o'clock.'

'Just about everyone goes,' said the Lecturer. 'Except us.'

One of the other wizards peered intently at the bottom of the poster.

'It says here,' he said, ' “A Sarger of Passione and Broad Staircases in Ankh-Morpork's Turbelent Histry!” '

'Ah. It's historical, then, is it?' said the Lecturer.

'And it says “A Epic Love Story that Astoundede Goddes and Menne!!” '

'Oh? Religious, as well.'

'And it says, “Withe a 1,000 elephants!!!” '

'Ah. Wildlife. Always very educational, wildlife,' said the Chair, looking speculatively at the Dean. The other wizards were doing so, too.

'It seems to me', said the Lecturer, slowly, 'that no-one could possibly object to senior wizards viewing a work of historical, religious and, er, wildliforific interest.'

'University rules are very specific,' said the Dean, but not very enthusiastically.

'But surely only meant for the students,' said the Lecturer. 'I can quite understand that students shouldn't be allowed to watch something like this. They'd probably whistle and throw things at the screen. But it couldn't be seriously suggested, could it, that senior wizards such as ourselves shouldn't examine this popular phenomenon?'

Poons' flailing walking stick caught the Dean sharply across the back of his legs.