Men at Arms (Discworld 15)

'That's probably an angry mob right now,' said Nobby.

Carrot opened the door.

'It's not an angry mob,' he announced.

'Ook.'

'It's an orang-utan carrying a stunned dwarf followed by a troll. But he is quite angry, if that's any help.'

Lady Ramkin's butler, Willikins, had filled him a big bath. Hah! Tomorrow it'd be his butler, and his bath. And this wasn't one of the old hip bath, drag-it-in- front-of-the-fire jobs, no. The Ramkin mansion collected water off the roof into a big cistern, after straining out the pigeons, and then it was heated by an ancient geyser[24] and flowed along drumming, groaning lead pipes to a pair of mighty brass taps and then into an enamelled tub. There were things laid out on a fluffy towel beside it -huge scrubbing brushes, three kinds of soap, a loofah.

Willikins was standing patiently beside the bath, like a barely heated towel rail.

'Yes?' said Vimes.

'His lordship . . . that is, her ladyship's father . . . he required to have his back scrubbed,' said Willikins.

'You go and help the old geyser stoke the furnace,' said Vimes firmly.

Left alone, he struggled out of his breastplate and threw it in the corner. The chainmail shirt followed it, and the helmet, and the money pouch, and various leather and cotton oddments that came between a Watchman and the world.

And then he sank, gingerly at first, into the suds.

'Try soap. Soap'11 work,' said Detritus.

'Hold still, will you?' said Carrot.

'You're twisting my head off!'

'Go on, soap him head.'

'Soap your own head!'

There was a thung noise and Cuddy's helmet came free.

Cuddy emerged, blinking, into the light. He focused on the Librarian, and growled.

'He hit me on the head!'

'Oook.'

'He says you came up through the floor,' said Carrot.

'That's no reason to hit me on the head.'

'Some of the things that come up through the floor at Unseen University don't even have a head,' said Carrot.

'Oook!'

'Or they have hundreds. Why were you digging down there?'

'We weren't digging down. We were digging up . . .'

Carrot sat and listened. He interrupted only twice.

'Shot at you?'

'Five time,' said Detritus, happily. 'Have to report damage to breastplate but not to backplate on account of fortunately my body got in way, saving valuable city property worth three dollars.'