Interesting Times Read Free Page A

vicinity of a lot of books and hoping that something would pass from one to the other, while the actual young people put themselves in the vicinity of inns and taverns for exactly the same reason.
    It was the middle of the afternoon. The Chair of Indefinite Studies was giving a lecture in room 3B and therefore his presence asleep in front of the fire in the Uncommon Room was a technicality upon which no diplomatic man would comment.
    Ridcully kicked him on the shins.
    “Ow!”
    “Sorry to interrupt, Chair,” said Ridcully, in a very perfunctory way. “Gods help me, I need the Council of Wizards. Where is everybody?”
    The Chair of Indefinite Studies rubbed his leg. “I know the Lecturer in Recent Runes is giving a lecture in 3B † ,” he said. “But I don’t know where he is . You know, that really hurt—”
    “Round everyone up. My study. Ten minutes,” said Ridcully. He was a great believer in this approach. A less direct Archchancellor would have wandered around looking for everyone. His policy was to find one person and make their life difficult until everything happened the way he wanted it to. §
     
    Nothing in nature had that many feet. True, some things had that many legs —damp, wriggling things that live under rocks—but those weren’t legs with feet, they were just legs that ended without ceremony.
    Something brighter than the shark might have been wary. But “="”" swung treacherously into play and shot it forward.
    That was its first mistake.
    In these circumstances, one mistake = oblivion.
     
    Ridcully was waiting impatiently when, one by one, the senior wizards filed in from serious lecturing in room 3B. Senior wizards needed a lot of lecturing in order to digest their food.
    “Everyone here?” he said. “Right. Sit down. Listen carefully. Now…Vetinari hasn’t had an albatross. It hasn’t come all the way from the Counterweight Continent, and there isn’t a strange message that we’ve got to obey, apparently. Follow me so far?”
    The senior wizards exchanged glances.
    “I think we may be a shade unclear on the detail,” said the Dean.
    “I was using diplomatic language.”
    “Could you, perhaps, try to be a little more indiscreet?”
    “We’ve got to send a wizard to the Counterweight Continent,” said Ridcully. “And we’ve got to do it by teatime. Someone’s asked for a Great Wizard and it seems we’ve got to send one. Only they spell it Wizzard—”
    “Oook?”
    “Yes, Librarian?”
    Unseen University’s Librarian, who had been dozing with his head on the table, was suddenly sitting bolt upright. Then he pushed back his chair and, arms waving wildly for balance, left the room at a bowlegged run.
    “Probably remembered an overdue book,” said the Dean. He lowered his voice. “Am I alone in thinking, by the way, that it doesn’t add to the status of this University to have an ape on the faculty?”
    “Yes,” said Ridcully flatly. “You are. We’ve got the only librarian who can rip off your arm with his leg. People respect that. Only the other day the headof the Thieves’ Guild was asking me if we could turn their librarian into an ape and, besides, he’s the only one of you buggers who stays awake more’n an hour a day. Anyway—”
    “Well, I find it embarrassing,” said the Dean. “Also, he’s not a proper orang-utan. I’ve been reading a book. It says a dominant male should have huge cheek pads. Has he got huge cheek pads? I don’t think so. And—”
    “Shut up, Dean,” said Ridcully, “or I won’t let you go to the Counterweight Continent.”
    “I don’t see what raising a perfectly valid—What?”
    “They’re asking for the Great Wizzard,” said Ridcully. “And I immediately thought of you.” As the only man I know who can sit on two chairs at the same time, he added silently.
    “The Empire?” squeaked the Dean. “Me? But they hate foreigners!”
    “So do you. You should get on famously.”
    “It’s six thousand miles!”