'Well... perhaps just make them a bit sorry, then?'

'Yes, we can probably do that.'

The dwarfs were already creeping along the tunnel at the other side of the buried street. By the light of their torches she saw old frontages, bricked-up doors, windows filled with rubble.

This should be about the right place,' said Boddony, pointing to a faint rectangle filled with more low-grade brick.

'You're just going to break in?' said Sacharissa.

'We'll say we were lost,' said Boddony.

'Lost underground? Dwarfs?'

'All right, we'll say we're drunk. People'll believe that. Okay, lads...'

The rotten bricks fell away. Light streamed out. In the cellar beyond a man looked up from his desk, mouth open.

Sacharissa squinted through the dust. 'You?' she said.

'Oh, it's you, miss,' said Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler. 'Hello, boys. Am I glad to see you...'

The crew were just leaving when Gaspode arrived at the gallop. He took one look at the other dogs that were huddled around trie fire, then dived under the trailing folds of Foul Ole Ron's dreadful coat and whined.

It took some time for the whole of the crew to understand what was going on. These were, after all, people who ,'could argue and expectorate and creatively misunderstand their way through a three-hour argument after someone said 'Good morning'.

It was the Duck Man who finally got the message. 'These men are hunting terriers?' he said.

'Right! It was the bloody newspaper! You can't bloody trust people who write in newspapers!'

They threw these doggies in the river?'

'Right!' said Gaspode. 'It's all gone fruit-shaped!'

'Well, we can protect you too.'

'Yeah, but I've got to be out and about! I'm a figure in this town!

232

I can't lie low! I need a disguise! Look, we could be looking at fifty dollars here, right? But you need me to get it!'

The crew were impressed with this. In their cashless economy fifty dollars was a fortune.

'Blewitt,' said Foul Ole Ron.

'A dog's a dog,' said Arnold Sideways. 'On account of bein' called a dog.'

'Gaarck!' crowed Coffin Henry.

That's true,' said the Duck Man. 'A false beard isn't going to work.'

'Well, your huge brains had better come up with somethin', 'cos I'm staying put until you do,' said Gaspode. 'I've seen these men. They are not nice.'

There was a rumble from Altogether Andrews. His face flickered as the various personalities reshuffled themselves, and then settled into the waxy bulges of Lady Hermione.

'We could disguise him,' she said.

'What could you disguise a dog as?' said the Duck Man. 'A cat?'

'A dog is not just a dog,' said Lady Hermione. 'Ai think ai have an idea...'

The dwarfs were in a huddle when William got back. The epicentre of the huddle, its huddlee, turned out to be Mr Dibbler, who looked just like anyone would look if they've been harangued. William had never seen anyone to whom the word 'harangued' could be so justifiably applied. It meant someone who had been talked at by Sacharissa for twenty minutes.

'Is there a problem?' he said. 'Hello, Mr Dibbler...'

Tell me, William,' said Sacharissa, while pacing slowly around Dibbler's chair. 'If stories were food, what kind of food would Goldfish Eats Cat be?'

'What?' William stared at Dibbler. Realization dawned. 'I think it would be a sort of long, thin kind of food,' he said.

'Filled with rubbish of suspicious origin?'

'Now, there's no need for anyone to take that tone--' Dibbler began, and then subsided under Sacharissa's glare.

'Yes, but rubbish that's sort of attractive. You'd keep on eating it

233

even though you wished you weren't,' said William. 'What's going on here?'

'Look, I didn't want to do it,' Dibbler protested.

'Do what?' said William.

'Mr Dibbler's been writing those stories for the Inquirer,' said Sacharissa.

'I mean, no one believes what they read in the paper, right?' said Dibbler.

William pulled up a chair and sat straddling it, resting his arms on the back.

'So, Mr Dibbler... when did you start pissing in the fountain of Truth?'

'William!' snapped Sacharissa.

'Look, times haven't been good, see?' said Dibbler. 'And I thought, this news business... well, people like to hear about stuff from a long way away, you know, like in the Almanacke--'

' "Plague of Giant Weasels in Hersheba"?' said William.

'That's the style. Well, I thought... it doesn't sort of matter if they're, you know, really true... I mean...' William's glassy grin was beginning to make Dibbler uncomfortable. 'I mean... they're nearly true, aren't they? Everyone knows that sort of thing happens

'You didn't come to me' said William.

'Well, of course not. Everyone knows you're a bit... a bit unimaginative about that sort of thing.'

'You mean I like to know that things have actually happened?'

'That's it, yes. Mr Carney says people won't notice the difference anyway. He doesn't like you very much, Mr de Worde.'

'He's got wandering hands,' said Sacharissa. 'You can't trust a man like that.'

William pulled the latest copy of the Inquirer towards him and picked a story at random.

'"Man Stolen by Demons",' he said. 'This refers to Mr Ronnie "Trust Me" Begholder, known to owe Chrysoprase the troll more than two thousand dollars, last seen buying a very fast horse?'

'Well?'

'Where do the demons fit in?'

234

'Well, he could'Ve been stolen by demons,' said Dibbler. 'It could happen to anybody.'

'What you mean, then, is that there is no evidence that he wasn 't stolen by demons?'

That way people can make up their own minds,' said Dibbler. 'That's what Mr Carney says. People should be allowed to choose, he said.'

To choose what's true?'

'He doesn't clean his teeth properly, either,' said Sacharissa. 'I mean, I'm not one of those people who think cleanliness is next to godliness, but there are limits.'*

Dibbler shook his head sadly. 'I'm losin' my touch,' he said. 'Imagine - me, working for someone? I must've been mad. It's the cold weather getting to me, that's what it is. Even... wages,' he said the word with a shudder, 'looked attractive. D'you know,' he added, in a horrified voice, 'he was telling me what to do? Next time I'll have a quiet lie-down until the feeling goes away.'

'You are an immoral opportunist, Mr Dibbler,' said William.

'It's worked so far.'

'Can you sell some advertising for us?' said Sacharissa.

'I'm not going to work for anyone ag--'

'On commission,' snapped Sacharissa.

'What? You want to employ him?' said William.

'Why not? You can tell as many lies as you like if it's advertising. That's allowed,' said Sacharissa. 'Please? We need the money!'

'Commission, eh?' said Dibbler, rubbing his unshaven chin. 'Like... fifty per cent for you two and fifty per cent for me, too?'

'We'll discuss it, shall we?' said Goodmountain, patting him on the shoulder. Dibbler winced. When it came to hard bargaining, dwarfs were diamond-tipped.

'Have I got a choice?' he mumbled.

Goodmountain leaned forward. His beard was bristling. He

* Classically, very few people have considered that cleanliness is next to godliness, apart from in a very sternly abridged dictionary. A rank loincloth and hair in an advanced state of matted entanglement have generally been the badges of office of prophets whose injunction to disdain earthly things starts with soap.

235

wasn't currently holding a weapon but Dibbler could see, as it were, the great big axe that wasn't there.

'Absolutely,' he said.

'Oh,' said Dibbler. 'So... what would I be selling, exactly?'

'Space,' said Sacharissa.

Dibbler beamed again. 'Just space? Nothing? Oh, I can do that. I can sell nothing like anything]' He shook his head sadly. 'It's only when I try to sell something that everything goes wrong.'