'Uh. Sorry. No offence meant.'
'None taken,' said Carrot cheerfully.
'It's not that I've got anything against dwarfs. I've always said you'd have to look very hard before you'd find a, a better bunch of highly skilled, law-abiding, hard-working—'
'—little buggers?'
'Yes. No!'
They proceeded.
'That Mrs Cake,' said Carrot, 'definitely a strong-minded woman, eh?'
'Too true,' said Vimes.
Something crunched under Carrot's enormous sandal.
'More glass,' he said. 'It went a long way, didn't it.'
'Exploding dragons! What an imagination the girl has.'
'Woof woof,' said a voice behind them.
'That damn dog's been following us,' said Vimes.
'It's barking at something on the wall,' said Carrot.
Gaspode eyed them coldly.
'Woof woof, bloody whine whine,' he said. 'Are you bloody blind or what?'
It was true that normal people couldn't hear Gaspode speak, because dogs don't speak. It's a well-known fact. It's well known at the organic level, like a lot of other well-known facts which overrule the observations of the senses. This is because if people went around noticing everything that was going on all the time, no-one would ever get anything done.[7] Besides, almost all dogs don't talk. Ones that do are merely a statistical error, and can therefore be ignored.
However, Gaspode had found he did tend to get heard on a subconscious level. Only the previous day someone had absent-mindedly kicked him into the gutter and had gone a few steps before they suddenly thought: I'm a bastard, what am I?
'There is something up there,' said Carrot. 'Look . . . something blue, hanging off that gargoyle.'
'Woof woof, woof! Would you credit it?'
Vimes stood on Carrot's shoulders and walked his hand up the wall, but the little blue strip was still out of reach.
The gargoyle rolled a stony eye towards him.
'Do you mind?' said Vimes. 'It's hanging on your ear With a grinding of stone on stone, the gargoyle reached up a hand and unhooked the intrusive material.
'Thank you.'
' 'on't ent-on it.'
Vimes climbed down again.
'You like gargoyles, don't you, captain,' said Carrot, as they strolled away.
'Yep. They may only be a kind of troll but they keep themselves to themselves and seldom go below the first floor and don't commit crimes anyone ever finds out about. My type of people.'
He unfolded the strip.
It was a collar or, at least, what remained of a collar – it was burnt at both ends. The word 'Chubby' was just readable through the soot.