The Truth by Terry Pratchett Page A

had been rather a good fight in the Mended Drum. William was very pleased with that one: “Whereupon Brezock the Barbarian picked up a table and delivered a blow to Moltin the Snatcher, who in his turn seized hold of the Chandeliers and swung thereon, the while crying, ‘Take that, thou B*st*rd that you are!!!’ at which juncture, a ruckus commenced and 5 or 6 people were hurt…”
    He took it all down to the Bucket.
    Gunilla read it with interest; it seemed to take very little time for the dwarfs to set it up in type.
    And it was odd, but……once it was in type, all the letters so neat and regular…
    …it looked more real.
    Boddony, who seemed to be second in command of the print room, squinted at the columns of type over Goodmountain’s shoulder.
    “Hmm,” he said.
    “What do you think?” said William.
    “Looks a bit…gray,” said the dwarf. “All the type bunched up. Looks like a book.”
    “Well, that’s all right, isn’t it?” said William. Looks like a book sounded like a good thing.
    “Maybe you want it more sort of spaced out?” said Gunilla.
    William stared at the printed page. An idea crept over him. It seemed to evolve from the page itself.
    “How about,” he said, “if we put a little title on each piece?”
    He picked up a scrap of paper and doodled: 5/6 Hurt in Tavern Brawl.
    Boddony read it solemnly.
    “Yes,” he said eventually. “That looks…suitable.” He passed the paper across the table.
    “What do you call this news sheet?” he said.
    “I don’t,” said William.
    “You’ve got to call it something,” said Boddony. “What do you put at the top?”
    “Generally something like ‘To my Lord The…’” William began. Boddony shook his head.
    “You can’t put that,” he said. “You want something a bit more general. More snappy .”
    “How about ‘Ankh-Morpork Items,’” said William. “Sorry, but I’m not much good at names.”
    Gunilla pulled his little hod out of his apron and selected some letters from one of the cases on the table. He screwed them together, inked them, and rolled a sheet of paper over them.
    William read: Ankh-Morpork tImes.
    “Messed that up a bit. Wasn’t paying attention,” muttered Gunilla, reaching for the type. William stopped him.
    “I don’t know,” he said. “Er. Leave it as it is…just make it a bigger T and a smaller i .”
    “That’s it, then,” said Gunilla. “All done. All right, lad? How many copies do you want?”
    “Er…twenty? Thirty?”
    “How about a couple of hundred?” Gunilla nodded at the dwarfs, who set to work. “It’s hardly worth going to press for less.”
    “Good grief! I can’t imagine there’s enough people in the city that’d pay five dollars!”
    “All right, charge ’em half a dollar. Then it’ll be a fifty dollars for us and the same for you.”
    “My word, really?”
    William stared at the beaming dwarf.
    “But I’ve still got to sell them,” he said. “It’s not as though they’re cakes in a shop. It’s not like—”
    He sniffed. His eyes began to water.
    “Oh dear,” he said. “We’re going to have another visitor. I know that smell.”
    “What smell?” said the dwarf.
    The door creaked open.
    There was this to be said about the Smell of Foul Ole Ron, an odor so intense that it took on a personality of its own and fully justified the capital letter: after the initial shock the organs of smell just gave up and shut down, as if no more able to comprehend the thing than an oyster can comprehend the ocean. After some minutes in its presence, wax would start to trickle out of people’s ears and their hair would begin to bleach.
    It had developed to such a degree that it now led a semi-independent life of its own, and often went to the theater by itself, or read small volumes of poetry. Ron was outclassed by his smell.
    Foul Ole Ron’s hands were thrust deeply into his pockets, but from one pocket issued a length of string, or rather a great many lengths of string