"How much damage did it do?"
   "Well, after you were out of it the wizards hit it with fireballs. It didn't like that at all. Just seemed to make it stronger and angrier. Took out the University's entire Widdershins wing."
   "And…?"
   "That's about it, really. It flamed a few more things, and then it must of flown away in all the smoke."
   "Noone saw where it went?''
   "If they did, they ain't saying." Nobby sat back and leered. "Disgusting, really, her livin' in a room like this. She's got pots of money, sarge says, she's got no call livin' in ordinary rooms. What's the good of not wanting to be poor if the rich are allowed to go round livin' in ordinary rooms? Should be marble." He sniffed. "Anyway, she said I was to fetch her when you woke up. She's feeding her dragons now. Old little buggers, aren't they. It's amazing she's allowed to keep 'em."
   "What do you mean?"
   "You know. Tarred with the same brush, and that."
   When Nobby had shambled out Vimes took another look around the room. It did, indeed, lack the gold leaf and marble that Nobby felt was compulsory for people of a high station in life. All the furniture was old, and the pictures on the wall, though doubtless valuable, looked the sort of pictures that are hung on bedroom walls because people can't think of anywhere else to put them. There were also a few amateurish watercolours of dragons. All in all, it had the look about it of a room that is only ever occupied by one person, and has been absent-mindedly moulded around them over the years, like a suit of clothes with a ceiling.
   It was clearly the room of a woman, but one who had cheerfully and without any silly moping been getting on with her life while all that soppy romance stuff had been happening to other people somewhere else, and been jolly grateful that she had her health.
   Such clothing as was visible had been chosen for sensible hardwearing qualities, possibly by a previous generation by the look of it, rather than its use as light artillery in the war between the sexes. There were bottles and jars neatly arranged on the dressing table, but a certain severity of line suggested that their labels would say things like "Rub on nightly" rather than "Just a dab behind the ears". You could imagine that the occupant of this room had slept in it all her life and had been called "my little girl" by her father until she was forty.
   There was a big sensible blue dressing gown hanging behind the door. Vimes knew, without even looking, that it would have a rabbit on the pocket.
   In short, it was the room of a woman who never expected that a man would ever see the inside of it.
   The bedside table was piled high with papers. Feeling guilty, but doing it anyway, Vimes squinted at them.
   Dragons was the theme. There were letters from the Cavern Club Exhibitions Committee and the Friendly Flamethrowers League. There were pamphlets and appeals from the Sunshine Sanctuary for Sick Dragons— "Poor little WINNY's fires were nearly Damped after Five years' Cruel Use as a Paint-Stripper, but now…" And there were requests for donations, and talks, and things that added up to a heart big enough for the whole world, or at least that part of it that had wings and breathed fire.
   If you let your mind dwell on rooms like this, you could end up being oddly sad and full of a strange, diffuse compassion which would lead you to believe that it might be a good idea to wipe out the whole human race and start again with amoebas.
   Beside the drift of paperwork was a book. Vimes twisted painfully and looked at the spine. It said: Diseases of the Dragon, by Sybil Deidre Olgivanna Ramkin.
   He turned the stiff pages in horrified fascination. They opened into another world, a world of quite stupefying problems. Slab Throat. The Black Tups. Dry Lung. Storge. Staggers, Heaves, Weeps, Stones. It was amazing, he decided after reading a few pages, that a swamp dragon ever survived to see a second sunrise. Even walking across a room must be reckoned a biological triumph.
   The painstakingly-drawn illustrations he looked away from hurriedly. You could only take so much innards.
   There was a knock at the door.
   "I say? Are you decent?" Lady Ramkin boomed cheerfully.
   "Er-"
   "I’ve brought you something jolly nourishing."
   Somehow Vimes imagined it would be soup. Instead it was a plate stacked high with bacon, fried potatoes and eggs. He could hear his arteries panic just by looking at it.
   "I've made a bread pudding, too," said Lady Ramkin, slightly sheepishly. "I don't normally cook much, just for myself. You know how it is, catering for one."
   Vimes thought about the meals at his lodgings. Somehow the meat was always grey, with mysterious tubes in it.
   "Er," he began, not used to addressing ladies from a recumbent position in their own beds. "Corporal Nobbs tells me…"
   "And what a colourful little man Nobby is!" said Lady Ramkin.
   Vimes wasn't certain he could cope with this.
   "Colourful?" he said weakly.
   "A real character. We've been getting along famously."
   "You have?"
   "Oh, yes. What a great fund of anecdotes he has."
   "Oh, yes. He's got that all right." It always amazed Vimes how Nobby got along with practically everyone. It must, he'd decided, have something to do with the common denominator. In the entire world of mathematics there could be no denominator as common as Nobby.
   "Er," he said, and then found he couldn't leave this strange new byway, "you don't find his language a bit, er, ripe?"
   "Salty," corrected Lady Ramkin cheerfully. "You should have heard my father when he was annoyed. Anyway, we found we've got a lot in common. It's an amazing coincidence, but my grandfather once had his grandfather whipped for malicious lingering."
   That must make them practically family, Vimes thought. Another stab of pain from his stricken side made him wince.
   "You've got some very bad bruising and probably a cracked rib or two," she said. "If you roll over I'll put some more of this on.'' Lady Ramkin flourished a jar of yellow ointment.
   Panic crossed Vimes's face. Instinctively, he raised the sheets up around his neck.
   "Don't play silly buggers, man," she said. "I shan't see anything I haven't seen before. One backside is pretty much like another. It's just that the ones I see generally have tails on. Now roll over and up with the nightshirt. It belonged to my grandfather, you know.''
   There was no resisting that tone of voice. Vimes thought about demanding that Nobby be brought in as a chaperon, and then decided that would be even worse.
   The cream burned like ice.
   "What is it?"
   "All kinds of stuff. It'll reduce the bruising and promote the growth of healthy scale."
   "What?"
   "Sorry. Probably not scale. Don't look so worried. I'm almost positive about that. Okay, all done." She gave him a slap on the rump.
   "Madam, I am Captain of the Night Watch," said Vimes, knowing it was a bloody daft thing to say even as he said it.
   "Half naked in a lady's bed, too," said Lady Ramkin, unmoved. "Now sit up and eat your tea. We've got to get you good and strong."
   Vimes's eyes filled with panic.
   "Why?" he said.
   Lady Ramkin reached into the pocket of her grubby jacket.
   "I made some notes last night," she said. "About the dragon."
   "Oh, the dragon." Vimes relaxed a bit. Right now the dragon seemed a much safer prospect.
   "And I did a bit of working out, too. I'll tell you this: it's a very odd beast. It shouldn't be able to get airborne."
   "You're right there."
   "If it's built like swamp dragons, it should weigh about twenty tons. Twenty tons! It's impossible. It's all down to weight and wingspan ratios, you see."
   "I saw it drop off the tower like a swallow."
   "I know. It should have torn its wings off and left a bloody great hole in the ground," said Lady Ramkin firmly. "You can't muck about with aerodynamics. You can't just scale up from small to big and leave it at that, you see. It's all a matter of muscle power and lifting surfaces."
   "I knew there was something wrong," said Vimes, brightening up. "And the flame, too. Nothing goes around with that kind of heat inside it. How do swamp dragons manage it?"
   "Oh, that's just chemicals," said Lady Ramkin dismissively. "They just distill something flammable from whatever they’ve eaten and ignite the flame just as it comes out of the ducts. They never actually have fire inside them, unless they get a case of blowback."
   "What happens then?"
   "You're scraping dragon off the scenery," said Lady Ramkin cheerfully. "I'm afraid they're not very well-designed creatures, dragons."
   Vimes listened.
   They would never have survived at all except that their home swamps were isolated and short of predators. Not that a dragon made good eating, anyway-once you'd taken away the leathery skin and the enormous flight muscles, what was left must have been like biting into a badly-run chemical factory. No wonder dragons were always ill. They relied on permanent stomach trouble for supplies of fuel. Most of their brain power was taken up with controlling the complexities of then— digestion, which could distill flame-producing fuels from the most unlikely ingredients. They could even rearrange their internal plumbing overnight to deal with difficult processes. They lived on a chemical knife-edge the whole time. One misplaced hiccup and they were geography.
   And when it came to choosing nesting sites, the females had all the common sense and mothering instinct of a brick.
   Vimes wondered why people had been so worried about dragons in the olden days. If there was one in a cave near you, all you had to do was wait until it self-ignited, blew itself up, or died of acute indigestion.
   "You've really studied them, haven't you," he said.
   "Someone ought to."
   "But what about the big ones?"
   "Golly, yes. They're a great mystery, you know," she said, her expression becoming extremely serious.
   "Yes, you said."
   "There are legends, you know. It seems as though one species of dragon started to get bigger and bigger and then . . . just vanished."
   "Died out, you mean?"
   "No . . . they turned up, sometimes. From somewhere. Full of vim and vigour. And then, one day, they stopped coming at all." She gave Vimes a triumphant look. "I think they found somewhere where they could really be. "
   "Really be what?"
   "Dragons. Where they could really fulfil their potential. Some other dimension or something. Where the gravity isn't so strong, or something."
   "I thought when I saw it," said Vimes, "I thought, you can't have something that flies and has scales like that."
   They looked at each other.
   "We've got to find it in its lair," said Lady Ramkin.
   "No bloody flying newt sets fire to my city," said Vimes.
   "Just think of the contribution to dragon lore," said Lady Ramkin.
   "Listen, if anyone ever sets fire to this city, it's going to be me. "
   "It's an amazing opportunity. There's so many questions ..."
   "You're right there." A phrase of Carrot's crossed Vimes's mind. "It can help us with our enquiries," he suggested.
   "But in the morning," said Lady Ramkin firmly.
   Vimes's look of bitter determination faded.
   "I shall sleep downstairs, in the kitchen," said Lady Ramkin cheerfully. "I usually have a camp bed made up down there when it's egg-laying time. Some of the females always need assistance. Don't you worry about me."
   "You're being very helpful," Vimes muttered.
   "I've sent Nobby down to the city to help the others set up your headquarters," said Lady Ramkin.
   Vimes had completely forgotten the Watch House. "It must have been badly damaged," he ventured.
   "Totally destroyed," said Lady Ramkin. "Just a patch of melted rock. So I'm letting you have a place in Pseudopolis Yard."
   "Sorry?"
   "Oh, my father had property all over the city," she said. "Quite useless to me, really. So I told my agent to give Sergeant Colon the keys to the old house in Pseudopolis Yard. It'll do it good to be aired."
   "But that area — I mean, there's real cobbles on the streets — the rent alone, I mean, Lord Vetinari won't-"
   "Don't you worry about it," she said, giving him a friendly pat. "Now, you really ought to get some sleep."
   Vimes lay in bed, his mind racing. Pseudopolis Yard was on the Ankh side of the river, in quite a high-rent district. The sight of Nobby or Sergeant Colon walking down the street in daylight would probably have the same effect on the area as the opening of a plague hospital.
   He dozed, gliding in and out of a sleep where giant dragons pursued him waving jars of ointment . . .
   And awoke to the sound of a mob.
   ...
   Lady Ramkin drawing herself up haughtily was not a sight to forget, although you could try. It was like watching continental drift in reverse as various subcontinents and islands pulled themselves together to form one massive, angry protowoman.
   The broken door of the dragon house swung on its hinges. The inmates, already as highly strung as a harp on amphetamines, were going mad. Little gouts of flame burst against the metal plates as they stampeded back and forth in their pens. "What," she said, "is the meaning of this?" If a Ramkin had ever been given to introspection she'd have admitted that it wasn't a very original line.
   But it was handy. It did the job. The reason that cliches become cliches is that they are the hammers and screwdrivers in the toolbox of communication.
   The mob filled the broken doorway. Some of it was waving various sharp implements with the up-and-down motion proper to rioters.
   "Worl," said the leader, "it's the dragon, innit?"
   There was a chorus of muttered agreement.
   "Hwhat about it?" said Lady Ramkin.
   "Worl. It's been burning the city. They don't fly far. You got dragons here. Could be one of them, couldn't it?"
   "Yeah."
   "S'right."
   "QED. "[15]
   "So what we're going to do is, we're going to put 'em down."
   "S'right."
   "Yeah."
   "Pro bono publico. "
   Lady Ramkin's bosom rose and fell like an empire. She reached out and grabbed the dunging fork from its hook on the wall.
   "One step nearer, I warn you, and you'll be sorry," she said.
   The leader looked beyond her to the frantic dragons.
   "Yeah?" he said, nastily. "And what'll you do, eh?"
   Her mouth opened and shut once or twice. "I shall summon the Watch!" she said at last.
   The threat did not have the effect she had expected. Lady Ramkin had never paid much attention to those bits of the city that didn't have scales on.
   "Well, that's too bad," said the leader. "That's really worrying, you know that? Makes me go all weak at the knees, that does."
   He extracted a lengthy cleaver from his belt. ' 'And now you just stand aside, lady, because-"
   A streak of green fire blasted out of the back of the shed, passed a foot over the heads of the mob, and burned a charred rosette in the woodwork over the door.
   Then came a voice that was a honeyed purr of sheer deadly menace.
   "This is Lord Mountjoy Quickfang Winterforth IV, the hottest dragon in the city. It could burn your head clean off. "
   Captain Vimes limped forward from the shadows.
   A small and extremely frightened golden dragon was clamped firmly under one arm. His other hand held it by the tail.
   The rioters watched it, hypnotised.
   "Now I know what you're thinking," Vimes went on, softly. "You're wondering, after all this excitement, has it got enough flame left? And, y'know, I ain't so sure myself ..."
   He leaned forward, sighting between the dragon's ears, and his voice buzzed like a knife blade:
   "What you've got to ask yourself is: Am I feeling lucky?"
   They swayed backwards as he advanced.
   "Well?" he said. "Are you feeling lucky?"
   For a few moments the only sound was Lord Mount-joy Quickfang Winterforth IV's stomach rumbling ominously as fuel sloshed into his flame chambers.
   "Now look, er," said the leader, his eyes fixed hypnotically on the dragon's head, "there's no call for anything like that…"
   "In fact he might just decide to flare off all by himself," said Vimes. "They have to do it to stop the gas building up. It builds up when they get nervous. And, y'know, I reckon you've made them all pretty nervous now."
   The leader made what he hoped was a vaguely conciliatory gesture, but unfortunately did it with the hand that was still holding a knife.
   "Drop it," said Vimes sharply, "or you're history."
   The knife clanged on the flagstones. There was a scuffle at the back of the crowd as a number of people, metaphorically speaking, were a long way away and knew nothing about it.
   "But before the rest of you good citizens disperse quietly and go about your business," said Vimes meaningfully, "I suggest you look hard at these dragons. Do any of them look sixty feet long? Would you say they've got an eighty-foot wingspan? How hot do they flame, would you say?"
   "Dunno," said the leader.
   Vimes raised the dragon's head slightly. The leader rolled his eyes.
   "Dunno, sir," he corrected.
   "Do you want to find out?"
   The leader shook his head. But he did manage to find his voice.
   "Who are you, anyway?" he said.
   Vimes drew himself up. "Captain Vimes, City Watch," he said.
   This met with almost complete silence. The exception was the cheerful voice, somewhere in the back of the crowd, which said: "Night shift, is it?"
   Vimes looked down at his nightshirt. In his hurry to get off his sickbed he'd shuffled hastily into a pair of Lady Ramkin's slippers. For the first time he saw they had pink pompoms on them.
   And it was at this moment that Lord Mountjoy Quickfang Winterforth IV chose to belch.
   It wasn't another stab of roaring fire. It was just a near-invisible ball of damp flame which rolled over the mob and singed a few eyebrows. But it definitely made an impression.
   Vimes rallied magnificently. They couldn't have noticed his brief moment of sheer horror.
   "That one was just to get your attention," he said, poker-faced. "The next one will be a little lower."
   "Er," said the leader. "Right you are. No problem. We were just going anyhow. No big dragons here, right enough. Sorry you've been troubled."
   "Oh, no," said Lady Ramkin triumphantly. "You don't get away that easily!" She reached up on to a shelf and produced a tin box. It had a slot in the lid. It rattled. On the side was the legend: The Sunshine Sanctuary for Sick Dragons.
   The initial whip-round produced four dollars and thirty-one pence. After Captain Vimes gestured pointedly with the dragon, a further twenty-five dollars and sixteen pence were miraculously forthcoming. Then the mob fled.
   "We made a profit on the day, anyway," said Vimes, when they were alone again.
   "That was jolly brave of you!"
   "Let's just hope it doesn't catch on," said Vimes, gingerly putting the exhausted dragon back in its pen. He felt quite lightheaded.
   Once again he was aware of eyes staring fixedly at him. He glanced sideways into the long, pointed face of Goodboy Bindle Featherstone, rearing up in a pose best described as The Last Puppy in the Shop.
   To his astonishment, he found himself reaching over and scratching it behind its ears, or at least behind the two spiky things at the sides of its head which were presumably its ears. It responded with a strange noise that sounded like a complicated blockage in a brewery. He took his hand away hurriedly.
   "It's all right," said Lady Ramkin. "It's his stomachs rumbling. That means he likes you."
   To his amazement, Vimes found that he was rather pleased about this. As far as he could recall, nothing in his life before had thought him worth a burp.
   "I thought you were, er, going to get rid of him," he said.
   "I suppose I shall have to," she said. "You know how it is, though. They look up at you with those big, soulful eyes…"
   There was a brief, mutual, awkward silence.
   "How would it be if I…"
   "You don't think you might like…"
   They stopped.
   "It'd be the least I could do," said Lady Ramkin.
   ' 'But you're already giving us the new headquarters and everything!"
   "That was simply my duty as a good citizen," said Lady Ramkin. "Please accept Goodboy as… as a friend. "
   Vimes felt that he was being inched out over a very deep chasm on a very thin plank.
   "I don't even know what they eat," he said.
   "They're omnivores, actually," she said. "They eat everything except metal and igneous rocks. You can't be finicky, you see, when you evolve in a swamp."
   "But doesn't he need to be taken for walks? Or flights, or whatever?"
   "He seems to sleep most of the time." She scratched the ugly thing on top of its scaly head. ' 'He's the most relaxed dragon I've ever bred, I must say."
   "What about, er, you know?" He indicated the dunging fork.
   "Well, it's mainly gas. Just keep him somewhere well ventilated. You haven't got any valuable carpets, have you? It's best not to let them lick your face, but they can be trained to control their flame. They're very helpful for lighting fires."
   Goodboy Bindle Featherstone curled up amidst a barrage of plumbing noises.
   They’ve got eight stomachs, Vimes remembered; the drawings in the book had been very detailed. And there's lots of other stuff like fractional-distillation tubes and mad alchemy sets in there.
   No swamp dragon could ever terrorize a kingdom, except by accident. Vimes wondered how many had been killed by enterprising heroes. It was terribly cruel to do something like that to creatures whose only crime was to blow themselves absent-mindedly to pieces in mid-air, which was not something any individual dragon made a habit of. It made him quite angry to think about it. A race of, of whittles, that's what dragons were. Born to lose. Live fast, die wide. Omnivores or not, what they must really live on was their nerves, flapping apologetically through the world in mortal fear of their own digestive system. The family would be just getting over father's explosion, and some twerp in a suit of armour would come plodding into the swamp to stick a sword into a bag of guts that was only one step away from self-destruction in any case.
   Huh. It'd be interesting to see how the great dragon slayers of the past stood up to the big dragon. Armour? Best not to wear it. It'd all be the same in any case, and at least your ashes wouldn't come prepackaged in their own foil.
   He stared and stared at the malformed little thing, and the idea that had been knocking for attention for the last few minutes finally gained entrance. Everyone in Ankh-Morpork wanted to find the dragon's lair. At least, wanted to find it empty. Bits of wood on a stick wouldn't do it, he was certain. But, as they said, set a thief... [16]
   He said, "Could one dragon sniff out another? I mean, follow a scent?"
   ...
   Dearest Mother [wrote Carrot] Talk about a Turn Up for the Books. Last night the dragon burned up our Headquarters and Lo and Behold we have been given a better one, it is in a place called Pseudopolis Yard, opposite the Opera House. Sgt Colon said we have gone Up in the World and has told Nobby not to try to sell the furnishings. Going Up in the World is a metaphor, which I am learning about, it is like Lying but more decorative. There are proper carpets to spit on. Twice today groups of people have tried to search the cellars here for the dragon, it is amazing. And digging up people's privies and poking into attics, it is like a Fever. One thing is, people haven't got time for much else, and Sgt Colon says, when you go out on your Rounds and shout Twelve of the Clock and All's Well while a dragon is melting the street you feel a bit of a Burke.
   I have moved out of Mrs Palm's because, there are dozens of bedrooms here. It was sad and they made me a cake but I think it is for the best, although Mrs Palm never charged me rent which was very nice of her considering she is a widow with so many fine daughters to bring up plus dowries ekcetra.
   Also I have made friends with this ape who keeps coming round to see if we have found his book. Nobby says it is a flea-ridden moron because it won 18 off him playing Cripple Mr Onion, which is a game of chance with cards which I do not play, I have told Nobby about the Gambling (Regulation) Acts, and he said Piss off, which I think is in violation of the Decency Ordinances of 1389 but I have decided to use my Discretion.
   Capt Vimes is ill and is being looked after by a Lady. Nobby says it is well known she is Mental, but Sgt Colon says its just because of living in a big house with a lot of dragons but she is worth a Fortune and well done to the Capt for getting his feet under the table. I do not see what the furniture has to do with it. This morning I went for a walk with Reel and showed her many interesting examples of the ironwork to be found in the city. She said it was very interesting. She said I was quite different to anyone she's ever met. Your loving son, Carrot.X
   PS I hope Minty is keeping well.
   He folded the paper carefully and shoved it into the envelope.
   "Sun's going down," said Sergeant Colon.
   Carrot looked up from his sealing wax.
   "That means it will be night soon," Colon went on, accurately.
   "Yes, Sergeant."
   Colon ran a finger round his collar. His skin was impressively pink, the result of a morning's scrubbing, but people were still staying at a respectful distance.
   Some people are born to command. Some people achieve command. And others have command thrust upon them, and the sergeant was now included in this category and wasn't very happy about it.
   Any minute now, he knew, he was going to have to say that it was time they went out on patrol. He didn't want to go out on patrol. He wanted to find a nice sub-basement somewhere. But nobblyess obligay; if he was in charge, he had to do it.
   It wasn't the loneliness of command that was bothering him. It was the being-fried-alive of command that was giving him problems.
   He was also pretty sure that unless they came up with something about this dragon very soon then the Patrician was going to be unhappy. And when the Patrician was unhappy, he became very democratic. He found intricate and painful ways of spreading that un-happiness as far as possible. Responsibility, the sergeant thought, was a terrible thing. So was being horribly tortured. As far as he could see, the two facts were rapidly heading towards one another.
   And thus he was terribly relieved when a small coach pulled up outside the Yard. It was very old, and battered. There was a faded coat of arms on the door. Painted on the back, and rather newer, was the little message: Whinny If You Love Dragons.
   Out of it, wincing as he got down, stepped Captain Vimes. Following him was the woman known to the sergeant as Mad Sybil Ramkin. And finally, hopping down obediently on the end of its lead, was a small…
   The sergeant was too nervous to take account of actual size.
   "Well, I'll be mogadored! They've only gone and caught it!"
   Nobby looked up from the table in the corner where he was continually failing to learn that it is almost impossible to play a game of skill and bluff against an opponent who smiles all the time. The Librarian took advantage of the diversion to help himself to a couple of cards off the bottom of the pack.
   "Don't be daft. That's just a swamp dragon," said Nobby. "She's all right, is Lady Sybil. A real lady."
   The other two guards turned and stared at him. This was Nobby talking.
   "You two can bloody well stop that," he said. "Why shouldn't I know a lady when I sees one? She give me a cup of tea in a cup thin as paper and a silver spoon in it," he said, speaking as one who had peeped over the plateau of social distinction. "And I give it back to her, so you can stop looking at me like that!"
   "What is it you actually do on your evenings off?" said Colon.
   "No business of yourn."
   "Did you really give the spoon back?" said Carrot.
   "Yes I bloody well did!" said Nobby hotly.
   "Attention, lads," said the sergeant, flooded with relief.
   The other two entered the room. Vimes gave his men his usual look of resigned dismay. "My squad," he mumbled.
   "Fine body of men," said Lady Ramkin. "The good old rank and file, eh?"
   "The rank, anyway," said Vimes.
   Lady Ramkin beamed encouragingly. This led to a strange shuffling among the men. Sergeant Colon, by dint of some effort, managed to make his chest stick out more than his stomach. Carrot straightened up from his habitual stoop. Nobby vibrated with soldierly bearing, hands thrust straight down by his sides, thumbs pointing sharply forward, pigeon chest inflated so much that his feet were in danger of leaving the ground.
   "I always think we can all sleep safer in my bed knowing that these brave men are watching over us," said Lady Ramkin, walking sedately along the rank, like a treasure galleon running ahead of a mild breeze. "And who is this?"
   It is difficult for an orangutan to stand to attention. Its body can master the general idea, but its skin can't. The Librarian was doing his best, however, standing in a sort of respectful heap at the end of the line and maintaining the kind of complex salute you can only achieve with a four-foot arm.
   " 'E's plain clothes, ma'am," said Nobby smartly. "Special Ape Services."
   "Very enterprising. Very enterprising indeed," said Lady Ramkin. "How long have you been an ape, my man?"
   "Oook."
   "Well done." She turned to Vimes, who was definitely looking incredulous.
   "A credit to you," she said. "A fine body of men…"
   "Oook."
   "…anthropoids," corrected Lady Ramkin, with barely a break in the flow.
   For a moment the rank felt as though they had just returned from single-handedly conquering a distant province. They felt, in fact, tremendously bucked up, which was how Lady Ramkin would almost certainly have put it and which was definitely several letters of the alphabet away from how they normally felt. Even the Librarian felt favoured, and for once had let the phrase 'my man' pass without comment.
   A trickling noise and a strong chemical smell prompted them to look around.
   Goodboy Bindle Featherstone was squatting with an air of sheepish innocence alongside what was not so much a stain on the carpet as a hole in the floor. A few wisps of smoke were curling up from the edges.
   Lady Ramkin sighed.
   "Don't you worry, ma'am," volunteered Nobby cheerfully. "Soon have that cleaned up."
   "I'm afraid they're often like that when they're excited," she said.
   "Fine specimen you got there, ma'am," Nobby went on, revelling in the new-found experience of social intercourse.
   "It's not mine," she said. "It belongs to the captain now. Or all of you, perhaps. A sort of mascot. His name is Goodboy Bindle Featherstone."
   Goodboy Bindle Featherstone bore up stoically under the weight of the name, and sniffed a table leg.
   "He looks more like my brother Errol," said Nobby, playing the cheeky chirpy lovable city sparrow card for all it was worth. "Got the same pointed nose, excuse me for saying so, milady."
   Vimes looked at the creature, which was investigating its new environment, and knew that it was now, irrevocably, an Errol. The little dragon took an experimental bite out of the table, chewed it for a few seconds, spat it out, curled up and went to sleep.
   "He ain't going to set fire to anything, is he?" said the sergeant anxiously.
   "I don't think so. He doesn't seem to have worked out what his flame ducts are for yet," said Lady Ramkin.
   "You can't teach him anything about relaxing, though," said Vimes. "Anyway, men ..."
   "Oook."
   "I wasn't talking to you, sir. What's this doing here?"
   "Er," said Sergeant Colon hurriedly, "I, er . . . with you being away and all, and us likely to be short-handed . . . Carrot here says it's all according to the law and that ... I swore him in, sir. The ape, sir."
   "Swore him in what, Sergeant?" said Vimes.
   "As Special Constable, sir," said Colon, blushing. "You know, sir. Sort of citizen's Watch."
   Vimes threw up his hands."Special? Bloody ' unique!"
   The Librarian gave Vimes a big smile.
   "Just temporarily, sir. For the duration, like," said Colon pleadingly. "We could do with the help, sir, and . . . well, he's the only one who seems to like us . . ."
   "I think it's a frightfully good idea," said Lady Ramkin. "Well done, that ape."
   Vimes shrugged. The world was mad enough already, what could make it worse?
   "Okay," he said. "Okay! I give in. Fine! Give him a badge, although I'm damned if I know where he'll wear it! Fine! Yes! Why not?"
   "You all right, Captain?" said Colon, all concern.
   "Fine! Fine! Welcome to the new Watch!" snapped Vimes, striding vaguely around the room. "Great! After all, we pay peanuts, don't we, so we might as well employ mon…"
   The sergeant's hand slapped respectfully across Vimes's mouth.
   "Er, just one thing, Captain," said Colon urgently, to Vimes's astonished eyes. "You don't use the 'M' word. Gets right up his nose, sir. He can't help it, he loses all self-control. Like a red rag to a wossname, sir. 'Ape' is all right, sir, but not the 'M' word. Because, sir, when he gets angry he doesn't just go and sulk, sir, if you get my drift. He's no trouble at all apart from that, sir. All right? Just don't say monkey. Oh shit!"
   The Brethren were nervous.
   He'd heard them talking. Things were moving too fast for them. He thought he'd led them into the conspiracy a bit at a time, never giving them more truth than their little brains could cope with, but he'd still overestimated them. A firm hand was needed. Firm but fair.
   "Brothers," said the Supreme Grand Master, "are the Cuffs of Veracity duly enhanced?"
   "What?" said Brother Watchtower vaguely. "Oh. The Cuffs. Yeah. Enhanced. Right."
   "And the Martlets of Beckoning, are they fittingly divested?"
   Brother Plasterer gave a guilty start. "Me? What? Oh. Fine, no problem. Divested. Yes."
   The Supreme Grand Master paused.
   "Brothers," he said softly. "We are so near. Just once more. Just a few hours. Once more and the world is ours. Do you understand, Brothers?"
   Brother Plasterer shuffled a foot.
   "Well," he said. "I mean, of course. Yes. No fears about that. Behind you one hundred and ten percent…"
   He's going to say only, thought the Supreme Grand Master.
   "…only…"
   Ah.
   "…we, that is, all of us, we've been . . . odd, really, you feel so different, don't you, after summoning the dragon, sort of…"
   "Cleaned out," said Brother Plasterer helpfully.
   "Yes, like it's sort of…" Brother Watchtower struggled with the serpents of self-expression,"..taking something out of you ..."
   "Sucked dry," said Brother Plasterer.
   "Yes, like he said, and we ... well, it's maybe it's a bit risky ..."
   "Like stuff's been dragged from your actual living brain by eldritch creatures from the Beyond," said Brother Plasterer.
   "I'd have said more like a bit of a sick headache, myself," said Brother Watchtower helplessly. "And we was wondering, you know, about all this stuff about cosmic balance and that, because, well, look what happened to poor old Dunnykin. Could be a bit of a judgement. Er."
   "It was just a maddened crocodile hidden in a flower bed," said the Supreme Grand Master. "It could have happened to anyone. I understand your feelings, however."
   "You do?" said Brother Watchtower.
   "Oh, yes. They're only natural. All the greatest wizards feel a little ill-at-ease before undertaking a great work such as this." The Brethren preened themselves. Great wizards. That's us. Yeah. "But in a few hours it'll be over, and I am sure that the king will reward you handsomely. The future will be glorious."
   This normally did the trick. It didn't appear to be working this time.
   "But the dragon…" Brother Watchtower began.
   "There won't be any dragon! We won't need it. Look," said the Supreme Grand Master, "it's quite simple. The lad will have a marvellous sword. Everyone knows kings have marvellous swords-"
   "This'd be the marvellous sword you've been telling us about, would it?" said Brother Plasterer.
   "And when it touches the dragon," said the Supreme Grand Master, "it'll be . . . foom!"
   "Yeah, they do that," said Brother Doorkeeper. "My uncle kicked a swamp dragon once. He found it eating his pumpkins. Damn thing nearly took his leg off."
   The Supreme Grand Master sighed. A few more hours, yes, and then no more of this. The only thing he hadn't decided was whether to let them alone — who'd believe them, after all? — or send the Guard to arrest them for being terminally stupid.
   "No," he said patiently, "I mean the dragon will vanish. We'll have sent it back. End of dragon."