Lords And Ladies

like 'she had a laugh like a mountain stream'?'

'I'm not personally familiar with it,' said Ponder, 'but I have read poetry that-'

'Load of cobblers, poetry,' said Ridcully. 'I've listened to mountain streams and they just go trickle, trickle, gurgle.

And you get them things in them, you know, insect things with little . . . anyway. Doesn't sound like laughter at all, is my point. Poets always get it wrong. 'S'like 'she had lips like cherries.' Small, round, and got a stone in the middle? Hah!'

He shut his eyes. After a while Ponder said, 'So what happened, sir?'

'What?'

'The girl you were telling me about.'

'What girl?'

'This girl.'

'Oh, that girl. Oh, she turned me down. Said there were things she wanted to do. Said there'd be time enough.'

There was another pause.

'What happened then?' Ponder prompted.

'Happened? What d'you think happened? I went off and studied. Term started. Wrote her a lot of letters but she never answered 'em. Probably never got 'em, they probably eat the mail up there. Next year I was studying all summer and never had time to go back. Never did go back. Exams and so on. Expect she's dead now, or some fat old granny with a dozen kids. Would've wed her like a shot. Like a shot.' Ridcully scratched his head. 'Hah . . . just wish I could remember her name . . .'

He stretched out with his feet on the Bursar.

''S'funny, that,' he said. 'Can't even remember her name. Hah! She could outrun a horse-'

'Kneel and deliver!'

The coach rattled to a halt.

Ridcully opened an eye.

'What's that?' he said.

Ponder jerked awake from a reverie of lips like mountain streams and looked out of the window.

'I think,' he said, 'it's a very small highwayman.'

The coachman peered down at the figure in the road. It was hard to see much from this angle, because of the short body and the wide hat. It was like looking at a well-dressed mushroom with a feather in it.

'I do apologize for this,' said the very small highwayman. 'I find myself a little short.'

The coachman sighed and put down the reins. Properly arranged holdups by the Bandits' Guild were one thing, but he was blowed if he was going to be threatened by an outlaw that came up to his waist and didn't even have a crossbow.

'You little bastard,' he said. 'I'm going to knock your block off.'

He peered closer.

'What's that on your back? A hump?'

'Ah, you've noticed the stepladder,' said the low highwayman. 'Let me demonstrate-'

'What's happening?' said Ridcully, back in the coach.

'Um, a dwarf has just climbed up a small stepladder and kicked the coachman in the middle of the road,' said Ponder.

'That's something you don't see every day,' said Ridcully. He looked happy. Up to now, the journey had been quite uneventful.

'Now he's coming toward us.'

'Oh, good.' The highwayman stepped over the groaning body of the driver and marched toward the door of the coach, dragging his stepladder behind him.

He opened the door.

'Your money or, I'm sorry to say, your-'

A blast of octarine fire blew his hat off. The dwarfs expression did not change. ' 'I wonder if I might be allowed to rephrase my demands?'

Ridcully looked the elegantly dressed stranger up and down or, rather, down and further down.

'You don't look like a dwarf,' he said, 'apart from the height, that is.'

'Don't look like a dwarf apart from the height?'

'I mean, the helmet and iron boots department is among those you are lacking in,' said Ridcully.

The dwarf bowed and produced a slip of pasteboard from one grubby but lace-clad sleeve.

'My card,' he said.

It read:

Giamo Casanunda

WORLD'S SECOND GREATEST LOVER

We Never Sleep

FINEST SWORDSMAN — SOLDIER OF FORTUNE

OUTRAGEOUS LIAR — STEPLADDERS REPAIRED

Ponder peered over Ridcully's shoulder.

'Are you really an outrageous liar?'

'No.'

'Why are you trying to rob coaches, then?'

'I am afraid I was waylaid by bandits.'

'But it says here,' said Ridcully, 'that you are a finest swordsman.'

'I was outnumbered.'

'How many of them were there?'

'Three million.'

'Hop in,' said Ridcully

Casanunda threw his stepladder into the coach and then peered into the gloom.

'Is that an ape asleep in there?'

'Yes.'

The Librarian opened one eye.

'What about the smell?'

'He won't mind.'

'Hadn't you better apologize to the coachman?' said

Ponder.

'No, but I could kick him again harder if he likes.'

'And that's the Bursar,' said Ridcully, pointing to Exhibit B, who was sleeping the sleep of the near- terminally overdosed on dried frog pills. 'Hey, Bursar? Bursssaaar? No, he's out like a light. Just push him under the seat. Can you play Cripple Mr. Onion?'

'Not very well.'

'Capital!'

Half an hour later Ridcully owed the dwarf $8,000.

'But I put it on my visiting card,' Casanunda pointed out. 'Outrageous liar. Right there.'

'Yes, but I thought you were lying!'

Ridcully sighed and, to Ponder's amazement, produced a bag of coins from some inner recess. They were large coins and looked suspiciously realistic and golden.

Casanunda might have been a libidinous soldier of fortune by profession but he was a dwarf by genetics,