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'Oh, I know about that My father told as to be mated When a man and a woman --'

'About the universe is what I ht about it?'

'I know the Disc is carried through space on the backs of four elephants that stand on the shell of Great A'Tuin,' said Mort

'That's just part of it I meant the whole universe of tiht and everything'

'Can't say I've ever given it ht The point is, the nodes are part of it They stop death fro out of control, see Not hiled for words – 'like, death should come exactly at the end of life, see, and not before or after, and the nodes have to be worked out so that the key figuresyou're not taking this in, are you?'

'Sorry'

'They've got to be worked out,' said Albert flatly, 'and then the correct lives have got to be got The hourglasses, you call them The actual Duty is the easy job'

'Can you do it?'

'No Can you?'

'No!'

Albert sucked reflectively at his pepperyppo, then,' he said

'Look, I can't see why you're so worried I expect he's just got held up somewhere,' said Mort, but it sounded feeble even to hih people buttonholed Death to tell his like 'You've got time for a quick half in there, my old mate, no need to rush off home' or invited him to make up a skittles team and come out for a Klatchian take-away afterwards, orIt struck Mort with sudden, terrible poignancy that Death reat party of Creation, he was always in the kitchen

'I'm sure I don't knohat's come over the irl Let's have a look at these nodes'

They opened the ledger

They looked at it for a long time

Then Mort said, 'What do all those symbols mean?'

'Sodomy non sapiens,' said Albert under his breath

'What does that ered if I know'

That izard talk, wasn't it?' said Mort

'You shut up about wizard talk I don't know anything about wizard talk You apply your brain to this here'

Mort looked down again at the tracery of lines It was as if a spider had spun a web on the page, stopping at every junction tofor some spark of inspiration None volunteered

'Any luck?'

'It's all Klatchian to me,' said Mort 'I don't even knohether it should be read upside down or sideways'

'Spiralling from the centre outwards,' sniffed Ysabell from her seat in the corner

Their heads collided as they both peered at the centre of the page They stared at her She shrugged

'Father taught me how to read the node chart,' she said, 'when I used to doin here He used to read bits out'

'You can help?' said Mort

'No,' said Ysabell She blew her nose

'What do you hty --'

'I mean,' said Ysabell, in razor tones, 'that I can do them and you can help'

The Ankh-Morpork Guild of Merchants has taken to hiring large gangs of s of walnuts whose job it is to re-educate those nise the many attractive points of their fine city For exa face doard in the river within hours of uttering the famous line, 'When a man is tired of Ankh-Morpork, he is tired of ankle-deep slurry'

Therefore it is prudent to dwell on one – of the very s that reat cities of the multiverse

This is its food

The trade routes of half the Disc pass through the city or down its rather sluggish river More than half the tribes and races of the Disc have representatives dwelling within its sprawling acres In Ankh-Morpork the cuisines of the world collide: on the etable, fifteen hundred cheeses, two thousand spices, three hundred types of meat, two hundred fowl, five hundred different kinds of fish, one hundred variations on the thes of one kind or another, fifty insects, thirty molluscs, twenty assorted snakes and other reptiles, and soratory bog truffle

Its eating establishe from the opulent, where the portions are tiny but the plates are silver, to the secretive, where some of the Disc'sthey can get down their throat best out of three

Harga's House of Ribs down by the docks is probably not nu as it does for the type of beefy clientele that prefers quantity and breaks up the tables if it doesn't get it They don't go in for the fancy or exotic, but stick to conventional food like flightless bird e flesh and burnt ground grass seeds dipped in ani, soss and bacon and a fried slice