Sergeant Colon cupped his hands around his mouth and issued the traditional policeman's cry of challenge.
'Oi! You!'
For a moment there was no sound but the wind and the gurgling of the water. Then a voice said: 'Yes?'
'Are you invading the city or what?'
There was another pause. Then:
'What?'
'What what?' said Colon, raising the stakes.
'What were the other options?'
'Don't mess me about... Are you, down there in the boat, invading this city?'
'No.'
'Fair enough,' said Colon, who on a night like this would happily take someone's word for it. 'Get a move on, then, 'cos we're going to drop the gate.'
After a while the splash of the oars resumed and disappeared downriver.
'You reckon that was enough, just askin' 'em?' said Nobby.
'Well, they ought to know,' said Colon.
'Yeah, but--'
'It was a tiny little rowin' boat, Nobby. Of course, if you want to go all the way down to them nice icy steps on the jetty--'
'No, sarge.'
'Then let's get back to the Watch House, all right?'
William turned up his collar as he hurried towards Cripslock the engraver. The usually busy streets were deserted. Only those people with the most pressing business were out of doors. It was turning out to be a very nasty winter indeed, a gazpacho of freezing fog, snow and Ankh-Morpork's ever-present, ever-rolling smog.
His eye was caught by a little pool of light by the Watchmakers' Guild. A small hunched figure was outlined in the glow.
He wandered over.
A hopeless sort of voice said, 'Hot sausages? Inna bun?'
'Mr Dibbler?' said William.
Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler, Ankh-Morpork's most enterprisingly unsuccessful businessman, peered at William over the top of his portable sausage-cooking tray. Snowflakes hissed in the congealing fat.
William sighed. 'You're out late, Mr Dibbler,' he said politely.
'Ah, Mr Word. Times is hard in the hot sausage trade,' said Dibbler.
'Can't make both ends meat, eh?' said William. He couldn't have stopped himself for a hundred dollars and a shipload of figs.
'Definitely in a period of slump in the comestibles market,' said Dibbler, too sunk in gloom to notice. 'Don't seem to find anyone ready to buy a sausage in a bun these days.'
William looked down at the tray. If Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler was selling hot sausages, it was a sure sign that one of his more ambitious enterprises had gone wahoonie-shaped yet again. Selling hot sausages from a tray was by way of being the ground state of Dibbler's existence, from which he constantly sought to extricate himself and back to which he constantly returned when his latest venture went all runny. Which was a shame, because Dibbler was an extremely good hot sausage salesman. He had to be, given the nature of his sausages.
'I should have got a proper education like you,' said Dibbler despondently. 'A nice job indoors with no heavy lifting. I could have found my nitch, if'n I'd have got a good education.'