It was the Duck Man who finally got the message. 'These men are hunting terriers?' he said.
'Right! It was the bloody newspaper! You can't bloody trust people who write in newspapers!'
They threw these doggies in the river?'
'Right!' said Gaspode. 'It's all gone fruit-shaped!'
'Well, we can protect you too.'
'Yeah, but I've got to be out and about! I'm a figure in this town!
I can't lie low! I need a disguise! Look, we could be looking at fifty dollars here, right? But you need me to get it!'
The crew were impressed with this. In their cashless economy fifty dollars was a fortune.
'Blewitt,' said Foul Ole Ron.
'A dog's a dog,' said Arnold Sideways. 'On account of bein' called a dog.'
'Gaarck!' crowed Coffin Henry.
That's true,' said the Duck Man. 'A false beard isn't going to work.'
'Well, your huge brains had better come up with somethin', 'cos I'm staying put until you do,' said Gaspode. 'I've seen these men. They are not nice.'
There was a rumble from Altogether Andrews. His face flickered as the various personalities reshuffled themselves, and then settled into the waxy bulges of Lady Hermione.
'We could disguise him,' she said.
'What could you disguise a dog as?' said the Duck Man. 'A cat?'
'A dog is not just a dog,' said Lady Hermione. 'Ai think ai have an idea...'
The dwarfs were in a huddle when William got back. The epicentre of the huddle, its huddlee, turned out to be Mr Dibbler, who looked just like anyone would look if they've been harangued. William had never seen anyone to whom the word 'harangued' could be so justifiably applied. It meant someone who had been talked at by Sacharissa for twenty minutes.
'Is there a problem?' he said. 'Hello, Mr Dibbler...'
Tell me, William,' said Sacharissa, while pacing slowly around Dibbler's chair. 'If stories were food, what kind of food would Goldfish Eats Cat be?'
'What?' William stared at Dibbler. Realization dawned. 'I think it would be a sort of long, thin kind of food,' he said.
'Filled with rubbish of suspicious origin?'
'Now, there's no need for anyone to take that tone--' Dibbler began, and then subsided under Sacharissa's glare.
'Yes, but rubbish that's sort of attractive. You'd keep on eating it even though you wished you weren't,' said William. 'What's going on here?'
'Look, I didn't want to do it,' Dibbler protested.
'Do what?' said William.
'Mr Dibbler's been writing those stories for the Inquirer,' said Sacharissa.
'I mean, no one believes what they read in the paper, right?' said Dibbler.
William pulled up a chair and sat straddling it, resting his arms on the back.
'So, Mr Dibbler... when did you start pissing in the fountain of Truth?'