Mr Jenkins tried to look away but Vimes's stare kept pulling him back. The occasional tremble of a lip suggested that he was preparing a riposte, but he was bright enough to spot that Vimes's grin was as funny as the one that moves very fast towards drowning men. And has a fin on top.

Mr Jenkins made a wise decision, and got down. “I'll.… er… I'll go and sort… I'd better go and… er…” he said, and pushed his way through the mob, which waited a little while to see if anything interesting was going to happen and then, disappointed, sought out other entertainment.

“You want I should go ad have a look at his boat?” said Detritus.

“No, sergeant. There won't be any silk, and there won't be any paperwork. There won't be anything except a lingering aroma of fish guts.”

“Wow, dem damn Klatchians steals everything that ain't nailed down, right?”

Vimes shook his head and strolled on. “They don't have trolls in Klatch, do they?” he said.

“Nossir. It's der heat. Troll brains don't work in der heat. If I was to go to Klatch,” said Detritus, his knuckles making little bink-bink noises as he dragged them over the cobbles, “I'd be really stoopid.”

“Detritus?”

“Yessir?”

“Never go to Klatch.”

“Nossir.”

Another speaker was attracting a much larger crowd. He stood in front of a large banner that proclaimed: GREASY FORANE HANDS OFF LESHP.

“Leshp,” said Detritus. “Now dere's a name that ain't got its teef in.”

“It's the land that came back up from under the sea last week,” said Vimes despondently.

They listened while the speaker proclaimed that Ankh-Morpork had a duty to protect its kith and kin on the new land. Detritus looked puzzled.