'Well . . .' he said. 'It has its moments . . .'
'I bet it does. I bet it does.'
'Are you often on gate duty, Boffo?' said Carrot pleasantly, as they strolled through the Fools' Guild.
'Huh! Just about all the time,' said Boffo.
'So when did that friend of his, you know, the Assassin . . . visit him?'
'Oh, you know about him, then,' said Boffo.
'Oh, yes,' said Carrot.
'About ten days ago,' said Boffo. 'It's through here, past the pie range.'
'He'd forgotten Beano's name, but he did know the room. He didn't know the number but he went straight to it,' Carrot went on.
'That's right. I expect Dr Whiteface told you,' said Boffo.
'I've spoken to Dr Whiteface,' said Carrot.
Angua felt she was beginning to understand the way Carrot asked questions. He asked them by not asking them. He simply told people what he thought or suspected, and they found themselves filling in the details in an attempt to keep up. And he never, actually, told lies.
Boffo pushed open a door and fussed around lighting a candle.
'Here we are then,' he said. 'I'm in charge of this, when I'm not on the bloody gate.'
'Ye gods,' said Angua, under her breath. 'It's horrible.'
'It's very interesting,' said Carrot.
'It's historical,' said Boffo the clown.
All those little heads . . .'
They stretched away in the candlelight, shelf on shelf of them, tiny little clown faces – as if a tribe of head-hunters had suddenly developed a sophisticated sense of humour and a desire to make the world a better place.
'Eggs,' said Carrot. 'Ordinary hens' eggs. What you do is, you get a hen's egg, and you make a hole in either end and you blow the egg stuff out, and then a clown paints his make-up on the egg and that's his official make-up and no other clown can use it. That's very important. Some faces have been in the same family for generations, you know. Very valuable thing, a clown's face. Isn't that so, Boffo?'
The clown was staring at him.
'How do you know all that?'
'I read it in a book.'
Angua picked up an ancient egg. There was a label attached to it, and on the label were a dozen names, all crossed out except the last one. The ink on the earlier ones had faded almost to nothing. She put it down and unconsciously wiped her hand on her tunic.
'What happens if a clown wants to use another clown's face?' she said.
'Oh, we compare all the new eggs with the ones on the shelves,' said Boffo. 'It's not allowed.'
They walked between aisles of faces. Angua fanded she could hear the squelch of a million custard-filled trousers and the echoes of a thousand honking noses and a million grins of faces that weren't smiling. About halfway along was a sort of alcove containing a desk and chair, a shelf piled with old ledgers, and a workbench covered with crusted pots of paint, scraps of coloured horsehair, sequins and other odds and ends of the egg-painter's spedalized art. Carrot picked up a wisp of coloured horsehair and twiddled it thoughtfully.
'But supposing,' he said, 'that a clown, I mean a clown with his own face . . . supposing he used another clown's face?'
'Pardon?' said Boffo.
'Supposing you used another clown's make-up?' said Angua.