‘Yes, Archchancellor.’
Modo hauled on a lever. The pipes started a hammering noise and steam leaked out of a few joints.
Ridcully took a last look around the bathroom.
It was a hidden treasure, no doubt about it. Say what you like, old Johnson must sometimes have got it right, even if it was only by accident. The entire room, including the floor and ceiling, had been tiled in white, blue and green. In the centre, under its crown of pipes, was Johnson's Patent ‘Typhoon’ Superior Indoor Ablutorium with Automatic Soap Dish, a sanitary poem in mahogany, rosewood and copper.
He'd got Modo to polish every pipe and brass tap until they gleamed. It had taken ages.
Ridcully shut the frosted door behind him.
The inventor of the ablutionary marvel had decided to make a mere shower a fully controllable experience, and one wall of the large cubicle held a marvellous panel covered with brass taps cast in the shape of mermaids and shells and, for some reason, pomegranates. There were separate feeds for salt water, hard water and soft water and huge wheels for accurate control of temperature. Ridcully inspected them with care.
Then he stood back, looked around at the tiles and sang, ‘Mi, mi, mi!’
His voice reverberated back at him.
‘A perfect echo!’ said Ridcully, one of nature's bathroom baritones.
He picked up a speaking tube that had been installed to allow the bather to communicate with the engineer.
‘All cisterns go, Mr Modo!’
‘Aye, aye, sir!’
Ridcully opened the tap marked ‘Spray’ and leapt aside, because part of him was still well aware that Johnson's inventiveness didn't just push the edge of the envelope but often went across the room and out through the wall of the sorting office.
A gentle shower of warm water, almost a caressing mist, enveloped him.
‘My word!’ he exclaimed, and tried another tap.
‘Shower’ turned out to be a little more invigorating. ‘Torrent’ made him gasp for breath and ‘Deluge’ sent him groping to the panel because the top of his head felt that it was being removed. ‘Wave’ sloshed a wall of warm salt water from one side of the cubicle to the other before it disappeared into the grating that was set into the middle of the floor.
‘Are you all right, sir?’ Modo called out.
‘Marvellous! And there's a dozen knobs I haven't tried yet!’
Modo nodded, and tapped a valve. Ridcully's voice, raised in what he considered to be song, boomed out through the thick clouds of steam.
‘Oh,
The song shut off suddenly. All Modo could hear was a ferocious gushing noise.
‘Archchancellor?’
After a moment a voice answered from near the ceiling. It sounded somewhat high and hesitant.
‘Er… I wonder if you would be so very good as to shut the water off from out there, my dear chap? Er… quite gently, if you wouldn't mind…’
Modo carefully spun a wheel. The gushing sound gradually subsided.
‘Ah. Well done,’ said the voice, but now from somewhere nearer floor level. ‘Well. Jolly good job. I think we can definitely call it a success. Yes, indeed. Er. I wonder if you could help me walk for a moment. I inexplicably feel a little unsteady on my feet… ’
Modo pushed open the door and helped Ridcully out and onto a bench. He looked rather pale.
‘Yes, indeed,’ said the Archchancellor, his eyes a little glazed. ‘Astoundingly successful. Er. Just a minor point, Modo—’
‘Yes, sir?’
‘There's a tap in there we perhaps should leave alone for now,’ said Ridcully. ‘I'd esteem it a service if you could go and make a little sign to hang on it.’
‘Yes, sir?’
‘Saying “Do not touch at all”, or something like that.’
‘Right, sir.’
‘Hang it on the one marked “Old Faithful”.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘No need to mention it to the other fellows.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Ye gods, I've never felt so clean.’
From a vantage point among some ornamental tilework near the ceiling a small gnome in a bowler hat watched Ridcully carefully.
When Modo had gone the Archchancellor slowly began to dry himself on a big fluffy towel. As he got his composure back, so another song wormed its way under his breath.
‘
The gnome slid down onto the tiles and crept up behind the briskly shaking shape.
Ridcully, after a few more trial runs, settled on a song which evolves somewhere on every planet where there are winters. It's often dragooned into the service of some local religion and a few words are changed, but it's really about things that have to do with gods only in the same way that roots have to do with leaves.
‘—
Ridcully spun. A corner of wet towel caught the gnome on the ear and flicked it onto its back.
‘I saw you creeping up!’ roared the Archchancellor. ‘What's the game, then? Small-time thief, are you?’
The gnome slid backwards on the soapy surface.
‘' ere, what's your game, mister, you ain't supposed to be able to see me!’
‘I'm a wizard! We can see things that are really there, you know,’ said Ridcully. ‘And in the case of the Bursar, things that aren't there, too. What's in this bag?’
‘You don't wanna open the bag, mister! You really don't wanna open the bag!’
‘Why? What have you got in it?’
The gnome sagged. ‘It ain't what's in it, mister. It's what'll come out. I has to let 'em out one at a time, no knowin' what'd happen if they all gets out at once!’
Ridcully looked interested, and started to undo the string.
‘You'll really wish you hadn't, mister!’ the gnome pleaded.
‘Will I? What're you doing here, young man?’
The gnome gave up.
‘Well… you know the Tooth Fairy?’
‘Yes. Of course,’ said Ridcully.
‘Well… I ain't her. But… it's sort of like the same business…’
‘What? You take things away?’
‘Er not take away, as such. More sort of… bring…’
‘Ah… like new teeth?’
‘Er… like new verrucas,’ said the gnome.
Death threw the sack into the back of the sledge and climbed in after it.
‘You're doing well, master,’ said Albert.
THIS CUSHION IS STILL UNCOMFORTABLE, said Death, hitching his belt. I AM NOT USED TO A BIG FAT STOMACH.
