Feet of Clay

'I think I need practice.'

'You sure you want to keep the beard?'

'You don't mean … shave? Cheery backed away.

'All right, all right. What about the iron helmet?'

'It belonged to my grandmother! It's dwarfish!'

'Fine. Fine. Okay. You've made a good start, anyway.'

'Er … what do you think of … this?' said Cheery, handing her a bit of paper.

Angua read it. It was a list of names, although most of them were crossed out:

Cheery Littlebottom

Cherry

Sherry

Sherri

Lucinda Littlebottom

Sharry

Sharri

Cheri

'Er … what do you think?' said Cheery nervously.

' 'Lucinda'?' said Angua, raising her eyebrows.

'I've always liked the sound of the name.'

' 'Cheri' is nice,' said Angua. 'And it is rather like the one you've got already. The way people spell in this town, no one will actually notice unless you point it out to them.'

Cheery's shoulders sagged with released tension. When you've made up your mind to shout out who you are to the world, it's a relief to know that you can do it in a whisper.

'Cheri', thought Angua. Now, what does that name conjure up? Does the mental picture include iron boots, iron helmet, a small worried face and a long beard?

Well, it does now.

Somewhere underneath Ankh-Morpork a rat went about its business, ambling unconcernedly through the ruins of a damp cellar. It turned a corner towards the grain store it knew was up ahead, and almost walked into another rat.

This one was standing on its hind-legs, though, and wearing a tiny black robe and carrying a scythe. Such of its snout that could be seen was bone-white.

SQUEAK? it said.

Then the vision faded and revealed a slightly smaller figure. There was nothing in the least rat-like about it, apart from its size. It was human, or at least humanoid. It was dressed in ratskin trousers but was bare above the waist, apart from two bandoliers that criss-crossed its chest. And it was smoking a tiny cigar.

It raised a very small crossbow and fired.

The soul of the rat — for anything so similar in so many ways to human beings certainly has a soul — watched gloomily as the figure took its recent habitation by the tail and towed it away. Then it looked up at the Death of Rats.

'Squeak?' it said.

The Grim Squeaker nodded.

SQUEAK.

A minute later Wee Mad Arthur emerged into the daylight, dragging the rat behind him. There were fifty- seven neatly lined up along the wall, but despite his name Wee Mad Arthur made a point of not killing the young and the pregnant females. It's always a good idea to make sure you've got a job tomorrow.

His sign was still tacked up over the hole. Wee Mad Arthur, as the only insect and vermin exterminator able to meet the enemy on its own terms, found that it paid to advertise.

'WEE MAD' ARTHUR

For those little things that get you down

Rats *FREE*

Mise: 1p per ten tails

Moles: 1/2p each

Warsps: 50p per nest. Hornets 20p extra

Cockroaches and similar by aranjement.

Small Fees — BIG JOBS

Arthur took out the world's smallest notebook and a piece of pencil lead. See here, now … fifty-eight skins at two a penny, City bounty for the tails at a penny per ten, and the carcases to Gimlet at tuppence per three, the hard-driving dwarf bastard that he was …

There was a moment's shadow, and then someone stamped on him.

'Right,' said the owner of the boot. 'Still catching rats without a Guild card, are you? Easiest ten dollars we ever earned, Sid. Let's go and—'

The man was lifted several inches off the ground, whirled around, and hurled against the wall. His companion stared as a streak of dust raced across his boot, but reacted too late.

'He's gone up me trouser! He's gone up me — arrgh!'

There was a crack.

'Me knee! Me knee! He's broken me knee!'

The man who had been flung aside tried to get up, but something scurried across his chest and landed astride his nose.

'Hey, pal?' said Wee Mad Arthur. 'Can yer mother sew, pal? Yeah? Then get her to stitch this one!'

He grabbed an eyelid in each hand and thrust his head forward with pin-point precision. There was another crack as the skulls met.

The man with the broken knee tried to drag himself away but Wee Mad Arthur leapt from his stunned comrade and proceeded to kick him. The kicks of a man not much more than six inches high should not hurt, but Wee Mad Arthur seemed to have a lot more mass than his size would allow. Being nutted by Arthur was like being hit by a steel ball from a slingshot. A kick seemed to have all the power of one from a large man, but very painfully concentrated into a smaller area.

'Yez can tell them buggers at the Rat-Catchers' Guild that I works for whoze I want and charges what I like,' he said, between kicks. 'And them shites can stop tryin' to persecute the small businessman …'

The other guild enforcer made it to the end of the alley. Arthur gave Sid a final kick and left him in the gutter.

Wee Mad Arthur walked back to his task, shaking his head. He worked for nothing and sold his rats for half the official rate, a heinous crime. Yet Wee Mad Arthur was growing rich because the guild hadn't got its joint heads around the idea of fiscal relativity.

Arthur charged a lot more for his services. A lot more, that is, from the specialized and above all low point of view of Wee Mad Arthur. What Ankh-Morpork had yet to understand was that the smaller you are the more your money is worth.

A dollar for a human bought a loaf of bread that was eaten in a few bites. The same dollar for Wee Mad Arthur bought the same-sized loaf, but it was food for a week and could then be further hollowed out and used as a bedroom.

The size-differential problem was also responsible for his frequent drunkenness. Few publicans were prepared to sell beer by the thimbleful or had gnome-sized mugs. Wee Mad Arthur had to go drinking in a swimming