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eventually came to bed, so she’d only hear later from the laundry girl about the bloodstains and the mud. There were rumors of chases over rooftops, hand-to-hand and knee-to-groin fights with men who had names like Harry “The Boltcutter” Weems…
    There was a Sam Vimes she knew, who went out and came home again, and out there was another Sam Vimes who hardly belonged to her and lived in the same world as all those men with the dreadful names…
    Sybil Ramkin had been brought up to be thrifty, thoughtful, genteel in an outdoor sort of way, and to think kindly of people.
    She looked at the pictures again, in the silence of the house.
    Then she blew her nose loudly and went off to do the packing and other sensible things.
     
    Corporal Cheery Littlebottom pronounced her name “Cheri.” She was a she, and therefore a rare bloom in Ankh-Morpork.
    It wasn’t that dwarfs weren’t interested in sex. They saw the vital need for fresh dwarfs to leave their goods to and continue the mining work after they had gone. It was simply that they also saw no point in distinguishing between the sexes anywhere but in private. There was no such thing as a Dwarfish female pronoun or, once the children were on solids, any such thing as women’s work.
    Then Cheery Littlebottom had arrived in Ankh-Morpork, and had seen that there were men out there who did not wear chain mail or leather underwear * , but did wear interesting colors and exciting makeup, and these men were called “women.” †
    And in the little bullet head the thought had arisen: “Why not me?”
    Now she was being denounced in cellars and dwarf bars across the city as the first dwarf in Ankh-Morpork to wear a skirt. It was hard-wearing brown leather and as objectively erotic as a piece of wood but, as some olderdwarfs would point out, somewhere under there were his knees . *
    Worse, they were now finding that among their sons were some—they choked on the word—“daughters.” Cheery was only the frothy bit on the tip of the wave. Some younger dwarfs were shyly wearing eye shadow and declaring that, as a matter of fact, they didn’t like beer. A current was running through dwarf society.
    Dwarf society was not against a few well-thrown rocks in the direction of those bobbing on the current, but Captain Carrot had put the word on the street that this would be assault on an officer, a subject on which the Watch held views , and however short the miscreants, their feet really would not touch the ground.
    Cheery had retained her beard and round iron helmet, of course. It was one thing to declare that you were female, but quite unthinkable to declare that you weren’t a dwarf.
    “Open and shut case, sir,” she said, when she saw Vimes come in. “They opened the window in the back room to get in, a very neat job, and didn’t shut the front door after they left. Smashed the Scone’s case; there’s the glass all round the stand. Didn’t take anything else that I can see. Left a lot of footprints in the dust. I took a few pictures, but they’re scuffed up and weren’t much good in the first place. That’s about it, really.”
    “No dropped cigarette butts, wallets or bits of paper with an address on them?” said Vimes.
    “No, sir. They were inconsiderate thieves.”
    “They certainly were,” said Carrot grimly.
    “A question that springs to mind,” said Vimes, “is: Why does it reek even worse of cat’s piss now?”
    “It is rather sharp, isn’t it,” said Cheery. “With a hint of sulfur, too. Constable Ping said it was like this when he arrived, but there’s no cat prints.”
    Vimes crouched down and looked at the broken glass.
    “How did we find out about this?” he said, prodding a few fragments.
    “Constable Ping heard the tinkle, sir. He went around the back and saw the window was opened. Then the crooks got out through the front door.”
    “Sorry about that, sir,” said Ping, stepping forward and saluting. He was a cautious-looking young