“Aye,” said Withel, “if he knows what’s good for trade.”

“Among his customers has been your man Gorrin,” said Ymor pleasantly, “for he writes here about a box on legs, if I read this scrawl correctly.”

He looked at Withel over the top of the paper. Withel looked away. “He will be disciplined,” he said flatly. Wa looked at the man leaning back in his chair, his black-clad frame resting as nonchalantly as a Rimland puma on a jungle branch, and decided that Gorrin atop Small Gods temple would soon be joining those little deities in the multifold dimensions of Beyond. And he owed Wa three copper pieces.

Ymor crumpled the note and tossed it into a corner. “I think we’ll wander along to the Drum later on, Withel. Perhaps, too, we may try this beer that your men find so tempting.”

Withel said nothing. Being Ymor’s right-hand man was like being gently flogged to death with scented bootlaces.

The twin city of Ankh-Morpork, foremost of all the cities bounding the Circle Sea, was as a matter of course the home of a large number of gangs, thieves’ guilds, syndicates and similar organisations. This was one of the reasons for its wealth. Most of the humbler folk on the widdershin side of the river, in Morpork’s mazy alleys, supplemented their meagre incomes by filling some small role for one or other of the competing gangs. So it was that by the time Hugh and Twoflower entered the courtyard of the Broken Drum the leaders of a number of them were aware that someone had arrived in the city who appeared to have much treasure. Some reports from the more observant spies included details about a book that told the stranger what to say, and a box that walked by itself. These facts were immediately discounted. No magician capable of such enchantments ever came within a mile of Morpork docks.

It still being that hour when most of the city was just rising or about to go to bed there were few people in the Drum to watch Twoflower descend the stairs. When the Luggage appeared behind him and started to lurch confidently down the steps the customers at the rough wooden tables, as one man, looked suspiciously at their drinks.