Feet of Clay - Terry Pratchett [4]
“Oh, very well.”
“And her ladyship said please to try not to upset anyone.”
“Tell her I’ll try.”
“And your sedan chair is outside, sir.”
Vimes sighed. “Thank you. There’s a man in the ornamental lake. Fish him out and give him a cup of tea, will you? Promising lad, I thought.”
“Certainly, sir.”
The chair. Oh, yes, the chair. It had been a wedding present from the Patrician. Lord Vetinari knew that Vimes loved walking the streets of the city, and so it was very typical of the man that he presented him with something that did not allow him to do so.
It was waiting outside. The two bearers straightened up expectantly.
Sir Samuel Vimes, Commander of the City Watch, rebelled again. Perhaps he did have to use the damn thing, but…
He looked at the front man and motioned with a thumb to the chair’s door. “Get in,” he commanded.
“But sir—”
“It’s a nice morning,” said Vimes, taking off his coat again. “I’ll drive myself.”
“Dearest Mumm & Dad…”
Captain Carrot of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch was on his day off. He had a routine. First he had breakfast in some handy café. Then he wrote his letter home. Letters home always gave him some trouble. Letters from his parents were always interesting, being full of mining statistics and exciting news about new shafts and promising seams. All he had to write about were murders and such things as that.
He chewed the end of his pencil for a moment.
Well, it has been an interesting week again [he wrote] I am running around like a flye with a blue bottom and No Mistake! We are opening another Watch House at Chittling Street which is handy for the Shades, so now we have no Less than 4 including Dolly Sisters and Long Wall, and I am the only Captain so I am around at all hours. Personally I sometimes miss the cameradery of the old days when it was just me and Nobby and Sergeant Colon but this is the Century of the Fruitbat. Sergeant Colon is going to retire at the end of the month, he says Mrs. Colon wants him to buy a farm, he says he is looking forward to the peace of the country and being Close to Nature, I’m sure you would wish him well. My friend Nobby is still Nobby only more than he was.
Carrot absent-mindedly took a half-eaten mutton chop from his breakfast plate and held it out below the table. There was an unk.
Anyway, back to the jobb, also I am sure I have told you about the Cable Street Particulars, although they are still based in Pseudopolis Yard, people do not like it when Watchmen do not wear uniforms but Commander Vimes says criminals don’t wear uniforms either so be d*mned to the lot of them.
Carrot paused. It said a lot about Captain Carrot that, even after almost two years in Ankh-Morpork, he was still uneasy about “d*mned.”
Commander Vimes says you have to have secret policemen because there are secret crimes…
Carrot paused again. He loved his uniform. He didn’t have any other clothes. The idea of Watchmen in disguise was…well, it was unthinkable. It was like those pirates who sailed under false colors. It was like spies. However, he went on dutifully:
…and Commander Vimes knows what he is talking about I am sure. He says it’s not like old fashioned police work which was catching the poor devils too stupid to run away!! Anyhow it all means a lot more work and new faces in the Watch.
While he waited for a new sentence to form, Carrot took a sausage from his plate and lowered it.
There was another unk.
The waiter bustled up.
“Another helping, Mister Carrot? On the house.” Every restaurant and eatery in Ankh-Morpork offered free food to Carrot, in the certain and happy knowledge that he would always insist on paying.
“No, indeed, that was very good. Here we are…twenty pence and keep the change.”
“How’s your young lady? Haven’t seen her today.”
“Angua? Oh, she’s…around and about, you know. I shall definitely tell her you asked after her, though.”
The dwarf nodded happily, and bustled off.
Carrot wrote another few dutiful lines and then