Men at Arms (Discworld 15)

'There,' she said. 'That's better. Now off you go and keep the streets safe for all of us. And if you want to do something really useful, you could find Chubby.'

'Chubby?'

'He got out of his pen last night.'

'A dragon?'

Vimes groaned, and pulled a cheap cigar out of his pocket. Swamp dragons were becoming a minor nuisance in the city. Lady Ramkin got very angry about it.

People would buy them when they were six inches long and a cute way of lighting fires and then, when they were burning the furniture and leaving corrosive holes in the carpet, the floor and the cellar ceiling underneath it, they'd be shoved out to fend for themselves.

'We rescued him from a blacksmith in Easy Street,' said Lady Ramkin. 'I said, “My good man, you can use a forge like everyoneelse”. Poor little thing.'

'Chubby,' said Vimes. 'Got a light?'

'He's got a blue collar,' said Lady Ramkin.

'Right, yes.'

'He'll follow you like a lamb if he thinks you've got a charcoal biscuit.'

'Right.' Vimes patted his pockets.

'They're a little bit over-excited in this heat.'

Vimes reached down into a pen of hatchlings and picked up a small one, which flapped its stubby wings excitedly. It spurted a brief jet of blue flame. Vimes inhaled quickly.

'Sam, I really wish you wouldn't do that.'

'Sorry.'

'So if you could get young Carrot and that nice Corporal Nobbs to keep an eye out for—'

'No problem.'

For some reason Lady Sybil, keen of eye in every other respect, persisted in thinking of Corporal Nobbs as a cheeky, lovable rascal. It had always puzzled Sam Vimes. It must be the attraction of opposites. The Ram-kins were more highly bred than a hilltop bakery, whereas Corporal Nobbs had been disqualified from the human race for shoving.

As he walked down the street in his old leather and rusty mail, with his helmet screwed on his head, and the feel of the cobbles through the worn soles of his boots telling him he was in Acre Alley, no-one would have believed that they were looking at a man who was very soon going to marry the richest woman in Ankh-Morpork.

Chubby was not a happy dragon.

He missed the forge. He'd quite liked it in the forge. He got all the coal he could eat and the blacksmith hadn't been a particularly unkind man. Chubby had not demanded much out of life, and had got it.

Then this large woman had taken him away and put him in a pen. There had been other dragons around. Chubby didn't particularly like other dragons. And people'd given him unfamiliar coal.

He'd been quite pleased when someone had taken him out of the pen in the middle of the night. He'd thought he was going back to the blacksmith.

Now it was dawning on him that this was not happening. He was in a box, he was being bumped around, and now he was getting angry . . .

Sergeant Colon fanned himself with his clipboard, and then glared at the assembled guards.

He coughed.

'Right then, people,' he said. 'Settle down.'

'We are settled down, Fred,' said Corporal Nobbs.

'That's Sergeant to you, Nobby,' said Sergeant Colon.