There were some nods, but not very definite ones. They were to nods what a grunt is to 'yes'. The guilds all picked up information. No one wanted to reveal how much, or how little, they personally knew, just in case they knew too little or, even worse, turned out to know too much.

However, Doc Pseudopolis of the Guild of Gamblers put on a careful poker face and said, 'Yes, but the tricentennial is coming up. And in a few years it'll be the Century of the Rat. There's something about centuries that gives people a kind of fever.'

'Nevertheless, the person exists,' said Mr Slant. The evidence stares one in the face if one looks in the right places.'

'Very well,' said Mr Boggis. Tell us the name of this captain.' He often lost large sums at poker.

'Captain?' said Mr Slant. 'I'm sorry to say his natural talents have thus far not commended him to that extent. He is a corporal. Corporal C. W. St J. Nobbs.'

There was silence.

And then there was a strange putt-putting sound, like water negotiating its way through a partially blocked pipe.

Queen Molly of the Beggars' Guild had so far been silent apart from occasional damp sucking noises as she tried to dislodge a particle of her lunch from the things which, because they were still in her mouth and apparently attached, were technically her teeth.

Now she was laughing. The hairs wobbled on every wart. 'Nobby Nobbs?' she said. 'You're talking about Nobby Nobbs?

'He is the last known descendant of the Earl of Ankh, who could trace his descent all the way to a distant cousin to the last king/ said Mr Slant. 'It's the talk of the city.'

'A picture forms in my mind,' said Dr Downey. 'Small monkeylike chap, always smoking very short cigarettes. Spotty. He squeezes them in public.'

'That's Nobby!' Queen Molly chuckled. 'Face like a blind carpenter's thumb!'

'Him? But the man's a tit!'

'And dim as a penny candle,' said Mr Boggis. 'I don't see—'

Suddenly he stopped, and then contracted the contemplative silence that was gradually affecting everyone else around the table.

'Don't see why we shouldn't... give this... due consideration,' he said, after a while.

The assembled leaders looked at the table. Then they looked at the ceiling. Then they studiously avoided one another's gaze.

'Blood will out,' said Mr Carry.

'When I've watched him go down the street I've always thought: There's a man who walks in greatness, ' said Mrs Palm.

'He squeezes them in a very regal way, mind you. Very graciously.'

The silence rolled over the assembly again. But it was busy, in the same way that the silence of an anthill is busy.

'I must remind you, ladies and gentlemen, that poor Lord Vetinari is still alive,' said Mrs Palm.

'Indeed, indeed,' said Mr Slant. 'And long may he remain so. I've merely set out for you one option against that day, may it be a long time coming, when we should consider a ... successor.'

'In any case,' said Dr Downey, 'there is no doubt that Vetinari has been over-doing it. If he survives -which is greatly to be hoped, of course - I feel we should require him to step down for the sake of his health. Well done thou good and faithful servant, and so on. Buy him a nice house in the country somewhere. Give him a pension. Make sure there's a seat for him at official dinners. Obviously, if he can be so easily poisoned now he should welcome the release from the chains of office

'What about the wizards?' said Mr Boggis.

'They've never got involved in civic concerns,' said Dr Downey. 'Give 'em four meat meals a day and tip your hat to them and they're happy. They know nothing about politics.'

The silence that followed was broken by the voice of Queen Molly of the Beggars. 'What about Vimes?'

Dr Downey shrugged. 'He is a servant of the city.'

'That's what I mean.'

'Surely we represent the city?'

'Hah! He won't see it that way. And you know what Vimes thinks about kings. It was a Vimes who chopped the head off the last one. There's a bloodline that thinks a swing of an axe can solve anything.'

'Now, Molly, you know Vimes'd probably take an axe to Vetinari if he thought he could get away with it. No love lost there, I fancy.'

'He won't like it. That's all I tell you. Vetinari keeps Vimes wound up. No knowing what happens if he unwinds all at once—'

'He's a public servant!' snapped Dr Downey.

Queen Molly made a face, which was not difficult in one so naturally well endowed, and sat back. 'So this is the new way of things, is it?' she muttered. 'Lot of ordinary men sit around a table and talk and suddenly the world's a different place? The sheep turn round and charge the shepherd?'

'There's a soiree at Lady Selachii's house this evening,' said Dr Downey, ignoring her. 'I believe Nobbs is being invited. Perhaps we can... meet him.'

Vimes told himself he was really going to inspect the progress on the new Watch House in Chittling Street. Cockbill Street was just round the corner. And then he'd call in, informally. No sense in sparing a man when they were pushed anyway, what with these murders and Vetinari and Detritus's anti-Slab crusade.

He turned the corner, and stopped.

Nothing much had changed. That was the shocking thing. After... oh, too many years... things had no right not to have changed.

But washing lines still criss-crossed the street between the grey, ancient buildings. Antique paint still peeled in the way cheap paint peeled when it had been painted on wood too old and rotten to take paint. Cockbill Street people were usually too penniless to afford decent paint, but always far too proud to use whitewash.

And the place was slightly smaller than he remembered. That was all.

When had he last come down here? He couldn't remember. It was beyond the Shades, and up until quite recently the Watch had tended to leave that area to its own unspeakable devices.

Unlike the Shades, though, Cockbill Street was clean, with the haunting, empty cleanliness you get when people can't afford to waste dirt. For Cockbill Street was where people lived who were worse than poor, because they didn't know how poor they were. If you asked them they would probably say something like 'mustn't grumble' or 'there's far worse off than us' or 'we've always kept uz heads above water and we don't owe nobody nowt'.

He could hear his granny speaking. 'No one's too poor to buy soap.' Of course, many people were. But in Cockbill Street they bought soap just the same. The table might not have any food on it but, by gods, it was well scrubbed. That was Cockbill Street, where what you mainly ate was your pride.

What a mess the world was in, Vimes reflected. Constable Visit had told him the meek would inherit it, and what had the poor devils done to deserve that ?

Cockbill Street people would stand aside to let the meek through. For what kept them in Cockbill Street, mentally and physically, was their vague comprehension that there were rules. And they went through life filled with a quiet, distracted dread that they weren't quite obeying them.

People said that there was one law for the rich and one law for the poor, but it wasn't true. There was no law for those who made the law, and no law for the incorrigibly lawless. All the laws and rules were for those people stupid enough to think like Cockbill Street people.

It was oddly quiet. Normally there'd be swarms of kids, and carts heading down towards the docks, but today the place had a shut-in look.

In the middle of the road was a chalked hopscotch path.

Vimes felt his knees go weak. It was still here! When had he last seen it? Thirty-five years ago? Forty? So it must have been drawn and redrawn thousands of times.

He'd been pretty good at it. Of course, they'd played it by Ankh-Morpork rules. Instead of kicking a stone they'd kicked William Scuggins. It had been just one of the many inventive games they'd played which had involved kicking, chasing or jumping on William Scuggins until he threw one of his famous wobblers and started frothing and violently attacking himself.