Snuff

don’t want to upset things it might just be that, in this bewildered place, they should be backed up by slow and steady, don’t you think?”
    â€œYou are, as always, right, my dear.”
    â€œBesides, I’ve seen Fred, and having to rethink his world view has clearly shaken him a little.”
    â€œHe’ll get over it,” said Vimes. “Once you get past the stupid Fred there is, against all expectations, a decent man there.”
    Sybil sighed. “Yes, Sam, but that decent man needs a holiday out in the sunshine away from the smoke and the grime and the terrible spells.”
    â€œBut they’re the best bits!” said Vimes, laughing.
    â€œNo, he needs a holiday. Everybody needs a holiday, Sam, even you.”
    â€œI’ve just had one, dear, thank you.”
    â€œNo, you had a few days interspersed with fighting and floods and murders and I don’t know what else. Look at your desk, make certain everybody is on their toes, and then we’ll go down there for another week, do you hear me, Sam Vimes?”

EPILOGUE
    A nd three months later Sam Vimes went on holiday again,
and this time he was allowed to steer the Black-Eyed Susan all the way to Quirm without
hardly hitting anything important, and was so happy that they had to find
another cat full of sixpences for him to be as happy as.
    He was amazed at how much fun a holiday could
be, but not so amazed as he was eight months after that when he and Sybil
were invited to be guests at the wedding of Ms. Emily Gordon to the eldest
son of Sir Abuthknott Makewar, owner of the famous Makewar pottery
manufactory and incidentally the inventor of Makewar’s Crispy Nuts, the
breakfast cereal of champions, without whose nourishing roughage the bowels
of Ankh-Morpork would be more congested than was good for them. The wedding
present from Vimes and Sybil was a silver egg coddler, Sybil being of the
view that you can’t go wrong with a coddled egg.
    And Vimes was gratified when he noticed at the
ceremony that one of the daughters was wearing a spanking new nurse’s
uniform and three of the others were sporting some quite fabulous and also,
according to Sybil with great glee, quite scandalous bonnets from the new
Gordon Bonnets range.
    There was an apology from the ax-wielding
Hermione, but according to her mother she was detained in the woods dealing
with a very large and troublesome Pinus , which caused Vimes’s face to go blank
until Sybil nudged him and pointed out that the pinus strobus was the
official name for the white pine.
    But most of all, later that year, Vimes was
totally amazed to find that the bestselling novel taking the Ankh-Morpork
literary world by storm was dedicated to Commander Samuel Vimes.
    The title of the book was Pride and Extreme Prejudice .

Also by Terry Pratchett
    The Carpet People
    The Dark Side of the Sun
    Strata
    Good Omens
    (WITH NEIL GAIMAN)
    For Young Adults
    The Bromeliad Trilogy: Truckers · Diggers · Wings
    The Johnny Maxwell Trilogy:
Only You Can Save Mankind · Johnny and the Dead · Johnny and the Bomb
    The Unadulterated Cat
    (ILLUSTRATED BY GRAY JOLLIFE)
    Nation
    THE DISCWORLD® BOOKS
    The Color of Magic
    The Light Fantastic
    Equal Rites
    Mort
    Sourcery
    Wyrd Sisters
    Pyramids
    Guards! Guards!
    Eric
    (WITH JOSH KIRBY)
    Moving Pictures
    Reaper Man
    Witches Abroad
    Small Gods
    Lords and Ladies
    Men at Arms
    Soul Music
    Feet of Clay
    Interesting Times
    Maskerade
    Hogfather
    Jingo
    The Last Continent
    Carpe Jugulum
    The Fifth Elephant
    The Truth
    Thief of Time
    Night Watch
    Monstrous Regiment
    Going Postal
    Thud!
    Where’s My Cow?
    (ILLUSTRATED BY MELVYN GRANT)
    Making Money
    Unseen Academicals

    The Last Hero
    (ILLUSTRATED BY PAUL KIDBY)
    The Art of Discworld
    (ILLUSTRATED BY PAUL KIDBY)
    The Streets of Ankh-Morpork
    (WITH STEPHEN BRIGGS)
    The Discworld Companion
    (WITH STEPHEN BRIGGS)
    The Discworld Mapp
    (WITH STEPHEN BRIGGS)
    The Wit and Wisdom of Discworld
    (WITH STEPHEN BRIGGS)
    The Discworld Graphic Novels:
The Color of Magic · The Light Fantastic
    For Young Adults
    The Amazing Maurice and His
Educated Rodents
    The Wee Free Men
    A Hat Full of Sky
    Wintersmith
    I Shall Wear Midnight
    The Illustrated Wee Free Men
    (ILLUSTRATED BY STEPHEN PLAYER)

Copyright
    This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and
dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as
real. Any resemblance to actual events or