Men at Arms (Discworld 15)

'Well, sir, when I was a kid we owned a cow once, and one day it got sick, and it was always my job to clean out the cowshed, and—'

'It reminds me of a clock,' said the Patrician. 'Big wheels, little wheels. All clicking away. The little wheels spin and the big wheels turn, all at different speeds, you see, but the machine works. And that is the most important thing. The machine keeps going. Because when the machine breaks down . . .'

He turned suddenly, strode to his desk with his usual predatory stalk, and sat down.

'Or, again, sometimes a piece of grit might get into the wheels, throwing them off balance. One speck of grit.'

Vetinari looked up and flashed Vimes a mirthless smile.

'I won't have that.'

Vimes stared at the wall.

'I believe I told you to forget about certain recent events, captain?'

'Sir.'

'Yet it appears that the Watch have been getting in the wheels.'

'Sir.'

'What am I to do with you?'

'Couldn't say, sir.'

Vimes minutely examined the wall. He wished Carrot was here. The lad might be simple, but he was so simple that sometimes he saw things that the subtle missed. And he kept coming up with simple ideas that stuck in your mind. Policeman, for example. He'd said to Vimes one day, while they were proceeding along the Street of Small Gods: Do you know where 'policeman' comes from, sir? Vimes hadn't. 'Polis' used to mean 'city', said Carrot. That's what policeman means: 'a man for the city'. Not many people know that. The word 'polite comes from 'polis', too. It used to mean the ptoper behaviour from someone living in a city.

Man of the city . . . Carrot was always throwing out stuff like that. Like 'copper'. Vimes had believed all his life that the Watch were called coppers because they carried copper badges, but no, said Carrot, it comes from the old word cappere, to capture.

Carrot read books in his spare time. Not well. He'd have real difficulty if you cut his index finger off. But continuously. And he wandered around Ankh-Morpork on his day off.

'Captain Vimes?'

Vimes blinked.

'Sir?'

'You have no concept of the delicate balance of the dry. I'll tell you one more time. This business with the Assassins and the dwarf and this clown . . . you are to cease involving yourself.'

'No, sir. I can't.'

'Give me your badge.'

Vimes looked down at his badge.

He never really thought about it. It was just something he'd always had. It didn't mean anything very much . . . really . . . one way or the other. It was just something he'd always had.

'My badge?'

'And your sword.'

Slowly, with fingers that suddenly felt like bananas, and bananas that didn't belong to him at that, Vimes undid his sword belt.

'And your badge.'

'Um. Not my badge.'

Why not?'