Part 43 (1/2)

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

55 Avenue Road, Suite 2900 Toronto, ON, M5R, 3L2, Canada

New Zealand

HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited P.O. Box 1 Auckland, New Zealand

United Kingdom

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

77-85 Fulham Palace Road London, W6 8JB, UK

*Quaffing is like drinking, but you spill more.

*Whatever that was. He'd never found anyone prepared to explain it to him. But it was definitely something a feudal lord ought to have and, he was pretty sure, it needed regular exercise. He imagined it was some kind of large hairy dog. He was definitely going to get one, and d.a.m.n well exercise it.

*Written by wizards, who are celibate and get some pretty funny ideas around four o'clock in the morning.

*She did nothing, although sometimes when she saw him in the village she'd smile in a faint, puzzled way. After three weeks of this the suspense was too much for him and he took his own life; in fact he took it all the way across the continent, where he became a reformed character and never went home again.

*All of them, unfortunately, unprintable.

*The vermine is a small black and white furry creature, much famed for its pelt. It is a more careful relative of the lemming; it only throws itself over small pebbles.

*They worked. Witches' remedies generally did, regardless of the actual form of delivery.

*A killing insult in Dwarfish, but here used as a term of endearment. It means ”lawn ornament.”

*In a manner of speaking.

*Someone has to do it. It's all very well calling for eye of newt, but do you mean Common, Spotted or Great Crested? Which eye, anyway? Will tapioca do just as well? If we subst.i.tute egg white will the spell a) work b) fail or c) melt the bottom out of the cauldron? Goodie Whemper's curiosity about such things was huge and insatiable.**

**Nearly insatiable. It was probably satiated in her last flight to test whether a broomstick could survive having its bristles pulled out one by one in midair. According to the small black raven she had trained as a flight recorder, the answer was almost certainly no.