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‘Well sir,’ said Drumknott, ‘this is not a mechanism, really. All it does is simply extend the parts of the body and look, no steam, no soot, just sweat.’
‘Interesting,’ said the Patrician. ‘One man, his own motor.’
When the goblin eventually stopped in front of Lord Vetinari, he looked imploringly at Drumknott, who waited patiently for his master to decide.
Vetinari finally did smile and said, ‘A remarkable velocipede, Mister Of the Wheel the Spoke. I do believe that Leonard of Quirm had a similar idea, but now we are in a world of motion, I see no problem here. It appears that every man could be his own horse. I commend you. May I suggest, young goblin, that you take your prototype along to Commander Vimes. An instrument that doubles one’s speed ought to be very useful to a hurrying watchman, or, indeed, an insufficiently hurrying one. Mister Drumknott, please write a note to the commander and I will sign it. After all, some of them could do with the exercise. And if I were you, sir,’ he added to the goblin, ‘I would make an appointment with a certain troll lawyer called Thunderbolt and do what he tells you.
‘The world is changing and it needs its shepherds and sometimes its butchers. And in this case, I’m its shepherd. Your enterprise has been noted. And all that anyone can say now is: What next? What little thing will change the world because the little tinkers carried on tinkering?’
fn1 There were some salacious comments about this, but it appeared, alas, to the local and as yet unmarried girls that Mad Iron Simnel and his men had found something more interesting than women and apparently it was made of steel.
fn2 Correctly pronounced Beyonk.
fn3 Literal translation: ‘chief mining engineer’.
fn4 Humans might have said ‘beef’ at this point, but not many dwarfs have a taste for cow, whereas rat is perennially dependable.
fn5 Scouting for trolls, dwarfs and humans was brought in shortly after the Koom Valley Accord had been signed, on the suggestion of Lord Vetinari, to allow the young of the three dominant species to meet and hopefully get along together. Naturally the young of all species, when thrown together, instead of turning against one another would join forces against the real enemy, that is to say their parents, teachers and miscellaneous authority which was so old-fashioned. And up to a point, and amazingly, it had worked and that was Ankh-Morpork, wasn’t it? Mostly, nobody cared what shape you were, although they might be very interested in how much money you had.
fn6 Besides being from the McSweeney dynasty and therefore frighteningly expensive. Although, he thought, when he looked at the porcelain shards on the floor, they didn’t look that expensive.
fn7 A term, technically speaking, for dog muck, much prized by the tanneries.
fn8 Unless they were a golem. During the dark days when the family clacks company had been usurped by businessmen, Adora Belle had diverted her energies into golem emancipation. She was still involved with the Golem Trust, but the pace of change in Ankh-Morpork, she was pleased to notice, meant that the golems were quite happily trusting themselves.
fn9 Adora Belle was, as even she knew, a creatively bad cook, mostly because she thought cookery a waste of time for a woman with even half a mind; and since Moist took pretty much the same stance when it came to manual labour, the arrangement seemed to suit all parties.
fn10 Which was his only name.
fn11 Separate bathrooms of course being the key to any happy marriage.
fn12 ‘Spike’ to her fond husband. Her brother had called her Killer, but he meant it in a nice way.
fn13 The official collective noun for a bunch of goblins.
fn14 The wonderfully colourful oak wood of the Effing Forest was much in demand for high-class joinery.
fn15 Known by habitués as the Sticky Head.
fn16 If you could give that name to somebody who had to deal every day with forms to sign, go to far too many meetings about meetings and handle the most petty of correspondence.
fn17 This black crystalline compound was widely used by troll women as an anti-ageing cream. Dick Simnel had been thorough in his research and it was, apparently, a very efficient lubricant.
fn18 The actual chairman being, in point of fact, Mr Fusspot, chairdog.
fn19 A term meaning that the builder speculates about how far away he can be, and with how much money, before the buyer finds that the footings have,
in fact, no feet, the septic tank is one foot deep with a tendency to flow backwards, and the bricks owe a lot to that most organic and venerable of all building materials, cow shit. The whole business traditionally begins with a plot, in every sense of the word. Entire suburbs were being built with such beguiling names as Nightingale Valley and Sunflower Gardens which had never heard a nightingale or seen a sunflower in bloom, but nevertheless were on the market with CMOT Dibbler Practically Real Estate and Associates, currently doing a roaring trade.
fn20 Oi Dong being not dissimilar to Shangri-La.
fn21 ‘lawn ornament’
fn22 Not to be confused with the fabled Nougat Knights, famed in dwarfish mythology as the ancestors who, at the beginning of the world, created the treacle mines and other subterranean sweets.
fn23 Moist wondered whether it should be loti, but thought, well, what the hell.
fn24 The term ‘specie’ requires the person asking for it to rub their thumb and forefinger together in a knowing way, if you know what I mean, guvnor?
