'Magic word? What's the magic word?'
The knocker perceptibly sneered. 'Haff you been taught nothing, miss?'
She drew herself up to her full height, which wasn't really worth the effort. She felt she'd had a trying day too. Her father had personally executed a hundred enemies in battle. She should be able to manage a doorknocker.
'I have been educated,' she informed it with icy precision, 'by some of the finest scholars in the land.'
The doorknocker did not appear to be impressed.
'Iff they didn't teach you the magic word,' it said calmly, 'they couldn't haff fbeen all that fine.'
Keli reached out, grabbed the heavy ring, and pounded it on the door. The knocker leered at her.
'Ftreat me rough,' it lisped. 'That'f the way I like it!'
'You're disgusting!'
'Yeff. Ooo, that waff nife, do it again. . . .'
The door opened a crack. There was a shadowy glimpse of curly hair.
'Madam, I said we're cl —'
Keli sagged.
'Please help me,' she said. 'Please!'
'See?' said the doorknocker triumphantly. 'Sooner or later everyone remembers the magic word!'
Keli had been to official functions in Ankh-Morpork and had met senior wizards from Unseen University, the Disc's premier college of magic. Some of them had been tall, and most of them had been fat, and nearly all of them had been richly dressed, or at least thought they were richly dressed.
In fact there are fashions in wizardry as in more mundane arts, and this tendency to look like elderly aldermen was only temporary. Previous generations had gone in for looking pale and interesting, or druidical and grubby, or mysterious and saturnine. But Keli was used to wizards as a sort of fur-trimmed small mountain with a wheezy voice, and Igneous Cutwell didn't quite fit the mage image.
He was young. Well, that couldn't be helped; presumably even wizards had to start off young. He didn't have a beard, and the only thing his rather grubby robe was trimmed with was frayed edges.
'Would you like a drink or something?' he said, surreptitiously kicking a discarded vest under the table.
Keli looked around for somewhere to sit that wasn't occupied with laundry or used crockery, and shook her head. Cutwell noticed her expression.
'It's a bit alfresco, I'm afraid,' he added hurriedly, elbowing the remains of a garlic sausage on to the floor. 'Mrs Nugent usually comes in twice a week and does for me but she's gone to see her sister who's had one of her turns. Are you sure? It's no trouble. I saw a spare cup here only yesterday.'
'I have a problem, Mr Cutwell,' said Keli.
'Hang on a moment.' He reached up to a hook over the fireplace and took down a pointy hat that had seen better days, although from the look of it they hadn't been very much better, and then said, 'Right. Fire away.'
'What's so important about the hat?'
'Oh, it's very 'essential. You've got to have the proper hat for wizarding. We wizards know about this sort of thing.'
'If you say so. Look, can you see me?'
He peered at her. 'Yes. Yes, I would definitely say I can see you.'
'And hear me? You can hear me, can you?'
'Loud and clear. Yes. Every syllable tinkling into place. No problems.'
'Then would you be surprised if I told you that no-one else in this city can?'