Vimes had protested that he’d spent too many years trudging the night-time streets to be happy about anyone else wielding a blade anywhere near his neck, but the real reason, the unspoken reason, was that he hated the very idea of the world being divided into the shaved and the shavers. Her father had never shaved himself in his life. He knew that Lady Sybil mildly disapproved. There was someone to do nearly everything for him, but there were some things a man ought to do for himself, and one of them was shaving.
And someone even polished his boots (and such boots! - no cardboard-soled wrecks but big, well-fitting boots of genuine shiny leather). And someone cooked his meals (what meals! - he was putting on weight, he knew). And someone laid out his clothes (such clothes!).
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These days, someone ran his bath (every day! - you wouldn’t think the human skin could stand it). The kneeling figure watched him for a while and then, taking great care, leaned forward slowly and closed his eyes.Ĭommander Sir Samuel Vimes, Ankh-Morpork City Guard, frowned at himself in the mirror and began to shave. ‘We don’t work like that,’ he mumbled, the little cylinder wobbling like a last cigarette. The newcomer took a quill pen from the debris, carefully wrote something on a scrap of paper, then rolled it up and placed it delicately between Father Tubelcek’s lips. The old priest watched as the books were retrieved and piled carefully with fingers not well suited to the task. Heavy footsteps creaked across the floor - one footstep at least, and one dragging noise.įather Tubelcek tried to focus.
He reached out shakily and tried to gather up the pages, but slumped back again. But Father Tubelcek had never been very concerned about that sort of thing. There had been no need for that, thought Father Tubelcek.Ī further thought suggested that there had been no need to hit him either. The mist of spring became the fog of autumn, which mixed with fumes and smoke from the magical quarter and the workshops of the alchemists until it seemed to have a thick, choking life of its own.Īutumn fog pressed itself against the midnight window-panes.īlood ran in a trickle across the pages of a rare volume of religious essays, which had been torn in half. Geographically speaking, there was not a lot of difference within the city itself, although in late spring the scum on the river was often a nice emerald green. In Ankh-Morpork, greatest of its cities, spring was nudged aside by summer, and summer was prodded in the back by autumn. Summer is a moving creature and likes to go south for the winter.Įven on the Discworld, with its tiny orbiting sun tilting over the turning world, the seasons moved.
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But geography is only physics slowed down and with a few trees stuck on it, and meteorology is full of excitingly fashionable chaos and complexity. People look down on stuff like geography and meteorology, and not only because they’re standing on one and being soaked by the other. A billion tons of geography rolled slowly through the sky. Continents drifted slowly past, topped by weather systems that themselves turned gently against the flow, like waltzers spinning counter to the whirl of the dance. The Discworld turned against the glittering backdrop of space, spinning very gently on the backs of the four giant elephants that perched on the shell of Great A’Tuin the star turtle. Shortly afterwards, and around the corner, a beggar holding out a hopeful hand for alms was amazed to find himself suddenly richer by a whole thirty dollars. Then, rocking slightly, the big heavy shapes moved away. The man, glancing from side to side, trotted in after it and shut the door.ĭeeper shadows moved in the dark. Tell your boss it’s a pleasure to do business with him. ‘Will you be selling any to them other bastards?’ Wait one moment.’ He went back inside and returned with a handful of coins. ‘Was that “thirty dollars” I just saw you write?’ ‘Religion is all very well, but what do prophets know about profits, eh? Hmm …’ He looked up at the shapeless golem in the shadows. ‘A man can’t sit by and watch his company collapse under him because of unfair price cutting, I mean to say …’ ‘Is he selling them to Albertson? Or Spadger and Williams? It’s hard enough competing as it is, and they’ve got the money to invest in new plant-’ ‘I heard the priests banned making ’em years ago. ‘But no one’s making golems any more, that’s what’s keeping the price up beyond the purse of the small business-’ He stopped. ‘It looks … new,’ said the man, tapping the gleaming chest.