Thud

`Come on, Fittly' said someone. `It's only fair. She ate hers!' And

someone else, as someone always does, began to clap and urge `Eat!

Eat!' Others took it up, encouraged by the fact that Fittly had gone

bright red.

`Eat! Eat! Eat! Eat! Eat! Eat! Eat! Eat! Eat!Eat!Eat!'

A man without an option, Fittly grabbed the bulb, forced it into

his mouth and bit it hard, to the accompaniment of cheers. A

moment later, Sally saw his eyes widen.

'Lance-Constable Humpeding?'

She turned. A young man of godlike proportions [1] was standing

[1] The better class of gods, anyway. Not the ones with the tentacles, obviously.

in the doorway. Unlike the armour of the other officers, his breastplate shone and the chain mail was quite devoid of rust.

`Everything all right?' The officer glanced at Fittly, who'd dropped to his knees and was coughing garlic across the room, but somehow quite failed to see him.

`Er, fine, sir,' said Sally, puzzled, as Fittly began to throw up. `We've met already. Everyone calls me Captain Carrot. Come with me, please.'

Out in the main office Carrot stopped and turned. `All right, lance-constable ... you had a bulb already prepared, right? Don't look like that, there's a vegetable barrow out in the square today. It's not hard to work out.'

`Er, Sergeant Angua did warn me. .

`So?'

`So I carved a garlic out of a radish, sir.'

`And the one you gave Fittly?'

`Oh, that was a carved radish, too. I try not to touch garlic, sir,'

said Sally. Oh gods, this one really was attractive ...

`Really? Just a radish? He seemed to take it badly,' said Carrot.

`I put a few fresh chilli seeds in it,' Sally added. `About thirty, I

think.'

`Oh? Why did you do that?'

`Oh, you know, sir,' said Sally, radiating innocence. `A bit of a laugh, a bit of fun. No harm done, eh?'

The captain appeared to consider this.

`We'll leave it at that, then,' he said. `Now, lance-corporal, have you ever seen a dead body?'

Sally waited to see if he was serious. Apparently, he was. `Strictly speaking, no, sir,' she said.

Vimes fretted through the afternoon. There was, of course, the paperwork. There was always the paperwork. The trays were only the start. Heaps of it were ranged accusingly along one wall, and gently merging.[1] He knew that he had to do it. Warrants, dockets, Watch Orders, signatures - that was what made the Watch a police force rather than just a bunch of rather rough fellows with inquisitive habits. Paperwork: you had to have lots of it, and it had to be signed by him.

He signed the arrests book, the occurrences book, even the lost property book. Lost property book! They'd never had one of those in the old days. If someone turned up complaining that they'd lost some small item, you just held Nobby Nobbs upside down and sorted through what dropped out.

But he didn't know two thirds of the coppers he employed now - not know, in the sense of knowing when they'd stand and when they'd run, knowing the little giveaways that'd tell him when they were lying or scared witless. It wasn't really his Watch any more. It was the city's Watch. He just ran it.

He went through the Station Sergeant's reports, the Watch Officers' reports, the Sick reports, the Disciplinary reports, the Petty Cash reports

'Duddle-dum-duddle-dum-duddle-'

Vimes slammed the Gooseberry down on the desk and picked up the small loaf of dwarf bread that for the last few years he'd used as a paperweight.

`Switch off or die,' he growled.

`Now, I can see you're slightly upset,' said the imp, looking up at the looming loaf, `but could I ask you to look at things from my point of view? This is my job. This is what I am. I am, therefore I think. And I think we could get along famously if you would only read the manu- Please, no! I really could help you!'

[1] Vimes had got around to a Clean Desk policy. It was a Clean Floor strategy that eluded him at the moment.

Vimes hesitated in mid thump, and then carefully put down the loaf.

`How?' he said.

`You've been adding up the numbers wrong,' said the imp. `You don't always carry the tens.'

`And how would you know that?' Vimes demanded. `You mutter to yourself,' said the imp.

`You eavesdrop on me?'

`It's my job! I can't switch my ears off! I have to listen! That's how I know about the appointments!'

Vimes picked up the Petty Cash report and glanced at the messy columns of figures. He prided himself on what he had, since infancy, called `sums: Yes, he knew he plodded a bit, but he got there in the end.

`You think you could do better?' he said.

`Let me out and give me a pencil!' said the imp. Vimes shrugged. It had been a strange day, after all. He opened the little cage door.

The imp was a very pale green and translucent, a creature made out of little more than coloured air, but it was able to grip the tiny pencil stub. It ran up and down the column of figures in the petty cash book and, Vimes was pleased to hear, it muttered to itself.

`It's out by three dollars and five pence,' it reported after a few seconds.

`That's fine, then,' said Vimes.