'Sorry to interrupt, Chair,' said Ridcully, in a very perfunctory way. 'God help me, I need the Council of Wizards. Where is everybody?'

The Chair of Indefinite Studies rubbed his leg. 'I know the Lecturer in Recent Runes is giving a lecture in 3B,' he said. 'But I don't know where he is. You know, that really hurt—'

'Round everyone up. My study. Ten minutes,' said Ridcully. He was a great believer in this approach. A less direct Archchancellor would have wandered around looking for everyone. His policy was to find one person and make their life difficult until every-thing happened the way he wanted it to.

Nothing in nature had that many feet. True, some things had that many legs - damp, wriggling things that live under rocks - but those weren't legs with feet, they were just legs that ended without ceremony.

Something brighter than the shark might have been wary But '=' swung treacherously into play and shot it forward.

That was its first mistake.

In these circumstances, one mistake = oblivion.

Ridcully was waiting impatiently when, one by one, the senior wizards filed in from serious lecturing in room 3B. Senior wizards needed a lot of lecturing in order to digest their food.

'Everyone here?' he said. 'Right. Sit down. Listen carefully. Now... Vetinari hasn't had an albatross. It hasn't come all the way from the Counterweight Continent, and there isn't a strange message that we've got to obey, apparently. Follow me so far?'

The senior wizards exchanged glances.

'I think we may be a shade unclear on the detail,' said the Dean.

'I was using diplomatic language.'

'Could you, perhaps, try to be a little more indiscreet?'

'We've got to send a wizard to the Counterweight Continent,' said Ridcully. 'And we've got to do it by teatime. Someone's asked for a Great Wizard and it seems we've got to send one. Only they spell it Wizzard—'