Unseen Academicals (Discworld 37)

'She gave me worth,' said Nutt. 'I was nothing and she gave me worth.'

'How can you say you were nothing?' said Glenda. On the pair of seats in front of them, Trev and Juliet were whispering together.

'I was nothing,' said Nutt. 'I knew nothing, I understood nothing, I had no understanding, I had no skill - '

'But that doesn't mean someone is worthless,' said Glenda firmly.

'It does,' said Nutt. 'But it does not mean they are bad. I was worthless. She showed me how to gain worth and now I have worth.'

Glenda had a feeling they were working from two different dictionaries. 'What does "worth" mean, Mister Nutt?'

'It means that you leave the world better than when you found it,' said Nutt.

'Good point,' said the lady with the macaroons. 'There's far too many people around the place who wouldn't dream of doing a hand's turn.'

'All right, but what about people who're blind, for example?' This from the hardboiled-egg man, sitting on the other side of the bus.

'I know a blind bloke in Sto Lat who runs a bar,' said an elderly gentleman. 'Knows where everything is and when you put your money on the counter he knows if it's the right change just by listening. He does all right. It's amazing, he can pick out a dud sixpence halfway across a noisy bar.'

'I don't think there are absolutes,' said Nutt. 'I think what Ladyship meant was that you do the best you can with what you have.'

'Sounds like a sensible lady,' said the man who had nothing against dwarfs.

'She's a vampire,' said Glenda maliciously.

'Nothing against vampires, just so long as they keep themselves to themselves,' said the macaroon lady, who was now engaged in licking something revoltingly pink. 'We've got one working down at the kosher butcher's on our street, and she's as nice as you like.'

'I don't think it's about what you end up with,' said the dwarf. 'It's about what you end up with compared with what you started with.'

Glenda leaned back with a smile as attempts at philosophy bounced their way from seat to seat. She wasn't at all certain about the whole thing, but Nutt was sitting there looking far less bedraggled and the rest of them were treating him as one of themselves.

There were dim lights ahead in the darkness. Glenda slipped from her seat and went up ahead to the driver. 'Are we nearly there yet?'

'Another five minutes,' said the driver.

'Sorry about all that silly business with the lead pipe,' she said.

'Didn't happen,' said the man cheerfully. 'Believe me, we get all sorts on the night bus. At least no one's thrown up. Quite an interestin' lad you've got back there with you.'

'You've no idea,' said Glenda.

'Of course, all he's saying is you've got to do your best,' said the driver. 'And the more best you're capable of, the more you should do. That's it, really.'

Glenda nodded. That did seem to be it, really. 'Do you go straight back?' she said.

'No. Me and the horses are stopping here and will go back in the morning.' He gave her the wry look of a man who's heard a great many things, and surprisingly seen a great many things, when to those behind him he was just a head facing forward keeping an eye on the road. 'That was a wonderful kiss she give me. I'll tell you what, the bus will be in the yard, there's plenty of straw around and if anyone was to have a bit of a kip, I wouldn't know about it, would I? We'll leave at six with fresh horses.' He grinned at her expression. 'I told you, we get all sorts on the late-night bus: kids running away from home, wives running away from husbands, husbands running away from other wives' husbands. It's called an omnibus, see, and omni means everything and damn near everything happens on this bus, that's why I have the axe, see? But the way I see it, life can't be all axe.' He raised his voice: 'Sto Lat coming up, folks! Return trip six o'clock prompt.' He winked at Glenda. 'And if you're not there, I'll go withoutcha,' he said. 'You've got to catch the bus at bus-catching time.'

'Well, this hasn't been so bad, has it?' said Glenda, as the lights of the city grew bigger.

'My dad's going to fret,' said Juliet.

'He'll think you're with me.'

Trev said nothing. By the rules of the street, being exposed in front of your want-to-be girlfriend as the kind of man who can so easily be seen not to be the kind of man that would have the guts to belt someone over the head with a length of lead pipe was extremely shaming, although no one seemed to have noticed this.

'Looks like a bit of trouble ahead,' the driver called back. 'The Lancre Flyer ain't gone.'

All they could see were flares and lantern lights, illuminating the big coaching inn outside the city gate, where several coaches were standing. As they drew nearer, he called to one of the skinny, bandy-legged and weaselly-looking men who seemed to self-generate around any establishment that involved the movement of horses. 'Flyer not gone?' he enquired.