And it was at this moment that Lord Mountjoy Quickfang Winterforth IV chose to belch.
It wasn't another stab of roaring fire. It was just a near-invisible ball of damp flame which rolled over the mob and singed a few eyebrows. But it definitely made an impression.
Vimes rallied magnificently. They couldn't have noticed his brief moment of sheer horror.
'That one was just to get your attention,' he said, poker-faced. 'The next one will be a little lower.'
'Er,' said the leader. 'Right you are. No problem. We were just going anyhow. No big dragons here, right enough. Sorry you've been troubled.'
'Oh, no,' said Lady Ramkin triumphantly. 'You don't get away that easily!' She reached up on to a shelf and produced a tin box. It had a slot in the lid. It rattled. On the side was the legend: The Sunshine Sanctuary for Sick Dragons.
The initial whip-round produced four dollars and thirty-one pence. After Captain Vimes gestured pointedly with the dragon, a further twenty-five dollars and sixteen pence were miraculously forthcoming. Then the mob fled.
'We made a profit on the day, anyway,' said Vimes, when they were alone again.
'That was jolly brave of you!'
'Let's just hope it doesn't catch on,' said Vimes, gingerly putting the exhausted dragon back in its pen. He felt quite lightheaded.
Once again he was aware of eyes staring fixedly at him. He glanced sideways into the long, pointed face of Goodboy Bindle Featherstone, rearing up in a pose best described as The Last Puppy in the Shop.
To his astonishment, he found himself reaching over and scratching it behind its ears, or at least behind the two spiky things at the sides of its head which were presumably its ears. It responded with a strange noise that sounded like a complicated blockage in a brewery. He took his hand away hurriedly.
'It's all right,' said Lady Ramkin. 'It's his stomachs rumbling. That means he likes you.'
To his amazement, Vimes found that he was rather pleased about this. As far as he could recall, nothing in his life before had thought him worth a burp.
'I thought you were, er, going to get rid of him,' he said.
'I suppose I shall have to,' she said. 'You know how it is, though. They look up at you with those big, soulful eyes…'
There was a brief, mutual, awkward silence.
'How would it be if I…'
'You don't think you might like…'
They stopped.
'It'd be the least I could do,' said Lady Ramkin.
' 'But you're already giving us the new headquarters and everything!'
'That was simply my duty as a good citizen,' said Lady Ramkin. 'Please accept Goodboy as… as a friend. '
Vimes felt that he was being inched out over a very deep chasm on a very thin plank.
'I don't even know what they eat,' he said.
'They're omnivores, actually,' she said. 'They eat everything except metal and igneous rocks. You can't be finicky, you see, when you evolve in a swamp.'
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