Unseen Academicals (Discworld 37)

'And you are telling me I'm wrong. Are you?'

'I would rather you thought of me as suggesting a way in which you could be even more right.'

Ridcully opened his mouth and then shut it again. I know what he is, he thought. Does he? Or did they spare him that?

'Very well, Mister Nutt. Is there a point you wish to make?'

'Yes, sir. What is the purpose of this game?'

'To win, of course!'

'Indeed. Regrettably, it is not being played that way.'

'It isn't?'

'No, sir. The players all want to kick the ball.'

'And so they should, surely?' said Ridcully.

'Only if you believe the purpose of the game is healthy exercise, sir. Do you play chess?'

'Well, I have done.'

'And would you have thought it proper for all the pawns to swarm up the board in the hope of checkmating the king?'

For a moment, Ridcully had a mental vision of Lord Vetinari holding aloft a solitary pawn and saying what it might become...

'Oh, come now, that is quite different!' he burst out.

'Yes, but the skill lies in marshalling resources in the right way.'

Ridcully saw a face appear behind Nutt, like a rising moon of wrath.

'You don't talk to the gentlemen, Nutt, it is not your place to take up their time with your chatter - '

Ridcully writhed in sympathy with Nutt, all the more so because Smeems, as is the habit of such people, kept looking at the Archchancellor as if seeking and, worse, expecting approval of this petty tyranny.

But authority must back up authority, in public at least, otherwise there is no authority, and therefore the senior authority is forced to back up the junior authority, even if he, the senior authority, believes that the junior authority is a tiresome little tit.

'Thank you for your concern, Mister Smeems,' he said, 'but in fact I asked Mister Nutt his opinion of our little kick-about, since it is the game of the people and he is rather more people than I am. I will not keep him long from his duties, Mister Smeems, nor you from yours, which I know are both vital and pressing.'

Small, insecure authority can spot, if it is sensible, when a larger authority is giving it a chance to save face.

'Right you are, sir!' said Smeems after only a second's hesitation, and he scurried off to safety. The thing called Nutt appeared to be trembling.

He thinks he's done something wrong, Ridcully thought, and I shouldn't think of him as a thing. Some wizard's sense made him look round into the face of¨Cwhat was the lad's name?¨CTrevor Likely.

'Do you have anything else to add, Mister Likely? Only I'm a bit busy at the moment.'

'I gave Mister Stibbons the change and the receipt,' said Trevor.

'What is it you do around here, young man?'

'I run the candle vats, guv.'

'Oh, do you? We're getting some very good dribbling from you fellows these days.'

Trev appeared to let this pass. 'Mister Nutt is not in any trouble, is he, guv?'