“Yes, Igor?” said Vimes, wondering not for the first time why anyone with stitches all round his head needed to tell anyone who he was.

“I would just like to thay, sir, that I could have got young Thtronginthearm back on his feet, thur,” said Igor, a shade reproachfully.

Vimes sighed. Igor's face was full of concern, tinged with disappointment. He had been prevented from plying his…craft. He was naturally disappointed.

“We've been through this, Igor. It's not like sewing a leg back on. And dwarfs are dead set against that sort of thing.”

“There's nothing thupernatural about it, thur. I am a man of Natural Philothophy! And he was still warm when they brought him in—”

“Those are the rules, Igor. Thanks all the same. We know your heart is in the right place—”

“They are in the right places, sir,” said Igor reproachfully.

“That's what I meant,” Vimes said, without missing a beat, just as Igor never did.

“Oh, very well, sir,” said Igor, giving up. He paused, and then said: “How is her ladyship, sir?”

Vimes had been expecting this. It was a terrible thing for a mind to do, but his had already presented him with the idea of Igor and Sybil in the same sentence. Not that he disliked Igor. Quite the reverse. There were watchmen walking around the streets right now who wouldn't have legs if it wasn't for Igor's genius with a needle. But—

“Fine. She's fine,” he said abruptly.

“Only I heard that Mrs Content was a bit worr—”

“Igor, there are some areas where…Look, do you know anything about…women and babies?”

“Not in so many wordth, sir, but I find that once I've got someone on the slab and had a good, you know, rummage around, I can thort out most thingth—”

Vimes's imagination actually shut down at this point.

“Thank you, Igor,” he managed, without his voice trembling, “but Mrs Content is a very experienced midwife.”

“Jutht as you say, sir,” said Igor, but doubt rode on the words.