Varneshi told him what it was.
'Codpiece like in fish?' said Carrot, mystified.
'No. It's for the fighting, ' mumbled Varneshi. 'You should wear it all the time. Protects your vitals, like. '
Carrot tried it on.
'It's a bit small, Mr Varneshi. '
'That's because you don't wear it on your head, you see. '
Varneshi explained some more, to Carrot's mounting bewilderment and, subsequently, horror. 'My great-grandad used to say, ' Varneshi finished, 'that but for this I wouldn't be here today. '
'What did he mean by that?'
Varneshi's mouth opened and shut a few times. 'I've no idea, ' he said, spinelessly.
Anyway, the shameful thing was now at the very bottom of Carrot's pack. Dwarfs didn't have much truck with things like that. The ghastly preventative represented a glimpse into a world as alien as the backside of the moon.
There had been another gift from Mr Varneshi. It was a small but very thick book, bound in a leather that had become like wood over the years.
It was called: The Laws And Ordinances of The Cities of Ankh And Morpork.
'This belonged to my great-grandad as well, ' he said. 'This is what the Watch has to know. You have to know all the laws, ' he said virtuously, 'to be a good officer. ''
Perhaps Varneshi should have recalled that, in the whole of Carrot's life, no one had ever really lied to him or given him an instruction that he wasn't meant to take quite literally. Carrot solemnly took the book. It would never have occurred to him, if he was going to be an officer of the Watch, to be less than a good one.
It was a five hundred mile journey and, surprisingly, quite uneventful. People who are rather more than six feet tall and nearly as broad across the shoulders often have uneventful journeys. People jump out at them from behind rocks then say things like, 'Oh. Sorry. I thought you were someone else. '
He'd spent most of the journey reading.
And now Ankh-Morpork was before him.
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