And it was done, unheard, unseen: the perfect end, a perfect solution, a perfect story.

But, as the dwarfs say, where there is trouble you will always find a troll.

The troll saw.

It started out as a perfect day. It would soon enough be an imperfect one, he knew, but just for these few minutes it was possible to pretend that it wouldn't.

Sam Vimes shaved himself. It was his daily act of defiance, a confirmation that he was ... well, plain Sam Vimes.

Admittedly he shaved himself in a mansion, and while he did so his butler read out bits from the Times, but they were just ... circumstances. It was still Sam Vimes looking back at him from the mirror. The day he saw the Duke of Ankh in there would be a bad day. `Duke' was just a job description, that's all.

`Most of the news is about the current ... dwarfish situation, sir,'

said Willikins as Vimes negotiated the tricky area under the nose. He still used his grandad's cut-throat razor. It was another anchor to reality. Besides, the steel was a lot better than the steel you got today. Sybil, who had a strange enthusiasm for modern gadgetry, kept on suggesting he get one of those new shavers, with a little magic imp inside that had its own scissors and did all the cutting very quickly, but Vimes had held out. If anyone was going to be using a blade near his face, it was going to be him.

'Koom Valley, Koom Valley ,' he muttered to his reflection. `Anything new?'

`Not as such, sir,' said Willikins, turning back to the front page. `There is a report of that speech by Grag Hamcrusher. There was a disturbance afterwards, it says. Several dwarfs and trolls were wounded. Community leaders have appealed for calm.'

Vimes shook some lather off the blade. `Hah! I bet they have. Tell me, Willikins, did you fight much when you were a kid? Were you in a gang or anything?'