Colon worked all day and Sergeant Colon worked all night. Sergeant Colon owed thirty years of happy marriage to the fact that Mrs. In the end he just drank to forget about drinking. What made it rather pointless was that he couldn’t remember what it was he was forgetting any more.

He was vaguely aware that he drank to forget. Thus, in return for an agreed average level of crime per annum, the thieves themselves saw to it that unauthorised crime was met with the full force of Injustice, which was generally a stick with nails in it.

One of the remarkable innovations introduced by the Patrician was to make the Thieves’ Guild responsible for theft, with annual budgets, forward planning and, above all, rigid job protection. If you didn’t, he sent men to come and take it away. You had to hand it to the Patrician, he admitted grudgingly. Next thing you knew, you were shuffling backwards, bowing and scraping, relieved simply to be getting away. You came to him with a perfectly reasonable complaint. It was always like this with the Patrician, he reflected bitterly. They were never quite sure whether he meant he’d deal with it now, or just deal with it briefly. ‘I shall deal with the matter momentarily,’ he said. I said, What if it is not all well, and he said, You bloody find another street. You walk along the Streets at Night shouting, It's Twelve O'clock and All's Well. The Patrician was not a man you shook a finger at unless you wanted to end up being able to count only to nine. You might be walking around and breathing, but you’re dead, just the same. You are either very cautious, or you are dead. There is no such thing as moderately cautious. In the night time streets of Ankh-Morpork caution is an absolute. People jump out at them from behind rocks then say things like, ‘Oh. People who are rather more than six feet tall and nearly as broad across the shoulders often have uneventful journeys.

(GG)Īll dwarfs are by nature dutiful, serious, literate, obedient and thoughtful people whose only minor failing is a tendency, after one drink, to rush at enemies screaming ‘Arrrrrrgh!’ and axing their legs off at the knee. Start messing around with descriptions like that and you’re in big trouble, is their motto. Dwarfs have no use for metaphor and simile. When you spend a large part of your life underground, you develop a very literal mind.

It’s a terrible thing to be nearly sixteen and the wrong species. It was the way he could roll his upper lip back to reveal more incredibly yellow teeth than any other mouth the University Council had ever seen before that somehow made sure the matter was never really raised. had been allowed to keep his job, which he was rather good at, although ‘allowed’ is not really the right word.

Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett