Moving Pictures - Terry Pratchett [30]
“Then they’ll have to shout,” he said. “I want something to eat and a cool drink. Maybe I’ve just caught a bit too much sun.”
Ginger looked uncertain. “Well, there’s the commissary, but—”
“Good. You can show me the way.”
“They fire people just like that—”
“What, before the third reel?”
“They say ‘There’s plenty more people who’re dying to break into moving pictures,’ you see—”
“Good. That means they’ll have all afternoon to find two of them who look just like us.” He strolled past Morry, who was also trying to keep in the shade of a rock.
“If anyone wants us,” he said, “we’ll be having some lunch.”
“What, right now?” said the troll.
“Yes,” said Victor firmly, and strode on.
Behind him he could see Dibbler and Silverfish locked in heated discussion, with occasional interruptions from the handleman, who spoke in the leisurely tones of one who knows he’s going to get paid six dollars today regardless.
“—we’ll call it an epic. People will talk about it for ages.”
“Yes, they’ll say we went bankrupt!”
“Look, I know where I can get some colored woodcuts done at practically cost—”
“—I was finking, maybe if I got some string and tied the moving picture box onto wheels, so it can be moved around—”
“People’ll say, that Silverfish, there’s a moving-picture-smith with the guts to give the people what they want, they’ll say. A man to roll back the wossname of the medium—”
“—maybe if I was to make a sort of pole and swivel arrangement, we could bring the picture box right up close to—”
“What? You think they’ll say that?”
“Trust me, Tommy.”
“Well…all right. All right. But no elephants. I want to make that absolutely clear. No elephants.”
“Looks weird to me,” said the Archchancellor. “Looks like a bunch of pottery elephants. Thought you said it was a machine?”
“More…more of a device,” said the Bursar uncertainly. He gave it a prod. Several of the pottery elephants wobbled.
“Riktor the Tinkerer built it, I think. It was before my time.”
It looked like a large, ornate pot, almost as high as a man of large pot height. Around its rim eight pottery elephants hung from little bronze chains; one of them swung backward and forward at the Bursar’s touch.
The Archchancellor peered down inside.
“It’s all levers and bellows,” he said, distastefully.
The Bursar turned to the University housekeeper.
“Well, now, Mrs. Whitlow,” he said, “what exactly happened?”
Mrs. Whitlow, huge, pink and becorseted, patted her ginger wig and nudged the tiny maid who was hovering beside her like a tugboat.
“Tell his lordship, Ksandra,” she ordered.
Ksandra looked as though she was regretting the whole thing.
“Well, sir, please, sir, I was dusting, you see—”
“She hwas dusting,” said Mrs. Whitlow, helpfully. When Mrs. Whitlow was in the grip of acute class consciousness she could create aitches where nature never intended them to be.
“—and then it started me’king a noise—”
“Hit made hay hnoise,” said Mrs. Whitlow. “So she come and told me, your lordship, h’as hper my instructions.”
“What kind of noise, Ksandra?” said the Bursar, as kindly as he could.
“Please, sir, sort of—” she screwed up her eyes,
“‘whumm…whumm…whumm…whumm…whummwhummwhumm WHUMMWHUMM—plib,’ sir.”
“Plib,” said the Bursar, solemnly.
“Yes, sir.”
“Hplib,” echoed Mrs. Whitlow.
“That was when it spat at me, sir,” said Ksandra.
“Hexpectorated,” corrected Mrs. Whitlow.
“Apparently one of the elephants spat out a little lead pellet, Master,” said the Bursar. “That was the, er, the ‘plib.’”
“Did it, bigods,” said the Archchancellor. “Can’t have pots going around gobbin’ all over people.”
Mrs. Whitlow twitched.
“What’d it go and do that for?” Ridcully added.
“I really couldn’t say, Master. I thought perhaps you’d know. I believe Riktor was a lecturer here when you were a student. Mrs. Whitlow is very concerned,” he added, in tones that made it clear that when Mrs. Whitlow was concerned about something it would be