I can see what the captain means, he thought. No wonder he always has a drink after he thinks about things. We always beat ourselves before we even start. Give any Ankh-Morpork man a big stick and he'll end up clubbing himself to death.
'Look here, you mealy-mouthed little twerp,' said the first speaker, picking up the little one by his collar and curling his free hand into a fist, 'I happen to have three daughters, and I happen to not want any of them et, thank you very much.'
'Yes, and the people united . . . will . . . never .. .be ...'
Colon's voice faltered. He realized that the rest of the crowd were all staring upward.
The bugger, he thought, as rationality began to drain away. It must have flannel feet.
The dragon shifted its position on the ridge of the nearest house, flapped its wings once or twice, yawned, and then stretched its neck down into the street.
The man blessed with daughters stood, with his fist upraised, in the centre of a rapidly expanding circle of bare cobbles. The little man wriggled out of his frozen grasp and darted into the shadows.
It suddenly seemed that no man in the entire world was so lonely and without friends.
'I see,' he said quietly. He scowled up at the inquisitive reptile. In fact it didn't seem particularly belligerent. It was looking at him with something approaching interest.
'I don't care!' he shouted, his voice echoing from wall to wall in the silence. 'We defy you! If you kill me, you might as well kill all of us!'
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