The other witches were silent for a moment.

'I daresay that was a valuable comment,' said Letice, 'but I didn't understand it.'

'If there ain't no water in the sea, it ain't the sea,' said Nanny Ogg. 'It's just a damn great hole in the ground. Thing about Esme is ...'

Nanny took another noisy pull at the pipe, 'she's all pride, see? She ain't just a proud person.'

'Then perhaps she should learn to be a bit more humble...'

'What's she got to be humble about?' said Nanny sharply.

But Letice, like a lot of people with marshmallow on the outside, had a hard core that was not easily compressed.

'The woman clearly has a natural talent and, really, she should be grateful for...

Nanny Ogg stopped listening at this point. The woman, she thought. So that was how it was going.

It was the same in just about every trade. Sooner or later someone decided it needed organizing, and the one thing you could be sure of was that the organizers weren't going to be the people who, by general acknowledgement, were at the top of their craft. They were working too hard. To be fair, it generally wasn't done by the worst, neither. They were working hard, too. They had to.

No, it was done by the ones who had just enough time and inclination to scurry and bustle. And, to be fair again, the world needed people who scurried and bustled. You just didn't have to like them very

much.

The lull told her that Letice had finished.

'Really? Now, me,' said Nanny, 'I'm the one who's nat'rally talented.

Us Oggs've got witchcraft in our blood. I never really had to sweat at it. Esme, now ... she's got a bit, true enough, but it ain't a lot. She just makes it work harder'n hell. And you're going to tell her she's not to?'

'We were rather hoping you would,' said Letice.

Nanny opened her mouth to deliver one or two swearwords, and then stopped.