Interesting Times - Terry Pratchett [9]
Its wearer gazed right through the wizards and, as if driven by some sudden recollection of purpose, lurched abruptly out of the octagon and headed towards the door of the hall.
The wizards followed cautiously.
“I’m not sure I believe her. How many times did she see it happen?”
“I don’t know. She never said.”
“The Bursar sleepwalks most nights, you know.”
“Does he? Tempting…”
Rincewind, if that was the creature’s name, headed out into Sator Square.
It was crowded. The air shimmered over the braziers of chestnut sellers and hot potato merchants and echoed with the traditional street cries of Old Ankh-Morpork.*
The figure sidled up to a skinny man in a huge overcoat who was frying something over a little oilheater in a wide tray around his neck.
The possibly-Rincewind grabbed the edge of the tray.
“Got…any…potatoes?” it growled.
“Potatoes? No, squire. Got some sausages inna bun.”
The possibly-Rincewind froze. And then it burst into tears.
“Sausage inna buuunnnnn!” it bawled. “Dear old sausage inna inna inna buuunnn! Gimme saussaaage inna buunnnnn!”
It grabbed three off the tray and tried to eat them all at once.
“Good grief!” said Ridcully.
The figure half ran, half capered away, fragments of bun and pork-product debris cascading from its unkempt beard.
“I’ve never seen anyone eat three of Throat Dibbler’s sausages inna bun and look so happy,” said the Senior Wrangler.
“I’ve never seen someone eat three of Throat Dibbler’s sausages inna bun and look so upright,” said the Dean.
“I’ve never seen anyone eat anything of Dibbler’s and get away without paying,” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
The figure spun happily around the square, tears streaming down its face. The gyrations took it past an alley mouth, whereupon a smaller figure stepped out behind it and with some difficulty hit it on the back of the head.
The sausage-eater fell to his knees, saying, to the world in general, “Ow!”
“Nonononononono!”
A rather older man stepped out and removed the cosh from the young man’s hesitant hands, while the victim knelt and moaned.
“I think you ought to apologize to the poor gentleman,” said the older man. “I don’t know, what’s he going to think? I mean, look at him, he made it so easy for you and what does he get? I mean, what did you think you were doing?”
“Mumblemumble, Mr. Boggis,” said the boy, looking at his feet.
“What was that again? Speak up!”
“Overarm Belter, Mr. Boggis.”
“That was an Overarm Belter? You call that an Overarm Belter? That was an Overarm Belter, was it? This—excuse me, sir, we’ll just have you up on your feet for a moment, sorry about this—this is an Overarm Belter—”
“Ow!” shouted the victim and then, to the surprise of all concerned, he added: “Hahahaha!”
“What you did was—sorry to impose again, sir, this won’t take a minute—what you did was this—”
“Ow! Hahahaha!”
“Now, you lot, you saw that? Come on, gather round…”
Half a dozen other youths slouched out of the alleyway and formed a ragged audience around Mr. Boggis, the luckless student and the victim, who was staggering in a circle and making little “oomph oomph” sounds but still, for some reason, apparently enjoying himself immensely.
“Now,” said Mr. Boggis, with the air of an old skilled craftsman imparting his professional expertise to an ungrateful posterity, “when inconveniencing a customer from your basic alley entrance, the correct procedure is—Oh, hello, Mr. Ridcully, didn’t see you there.”
The Archchancellor gave him a friendly nod.
“Don’t mind us, Mr. Boggis. Thieves’ Guild training, is it?”
Boggis rolled his eyes.
“Dunno what they teaches ’em at school,” he said. “It’s jus’ nothing but reading and writing all the time. When I was a lad school was where you learned somethin’ useful. Right—you, Wilkins, stop that giggling, you have a go, excuse us just another moment, sir—”
“Ow!”
“Nononononono! My old granny could do better than that! Now look, you steps up trimly, places one hand on his shoulder here, for control…go on, you do it…and then smartly—”
“Ow!”