Buddy swung it around until he could hold it, and played a couple of chords. That seemed to calm it down.

"I think it...er...likes the idea," he said.

"It likes the idea," said Glod, simmering down a little bit. "Oh, good. Well, do you know what they do to dwarfs who go into the Cavern?"

"We do need the money, and it's probably not worse than what the Guild'll do to us if we play anywhere else," said Buddy. "And we've got to play."

They stood looking at one another.

"What you boys should do now," said Dibbler, blowing out a smoke ring, "is find somewhere nice and quiet to spend the day. Have a bit of a rest."

"Damn right," said Cliff. "I never expected to carry dese rocks around de whole time-"

Dibbler raised a finger. "Ah," he said, "I thought of that, too. You don't want to waste your talents lugging stuff around, that's what I told myself. I hired you a helper. Very cheap, only a dollar a day; I'll take it straight out of your wages so's you don't have to bother about it. Meet Asphalt."

"Who?" said Buddy.

"'S me," said one of the sacks beside Dibbler.

The sack opened up a bit and turned out not to be a sack at all, but a...a sort of crumpled...a kind of mobile heap of...

Buddy felt his eyes watering. It looked looked like a troll, except that it was shorter than a dwarf. It wasn't like a troll, except that it was shorter than a dwarf. It wasn't smaller smaller than a dwarf-what Asphalt lacked in height he made up in breadth and, while on the subject, also in smell. than a dwarf-what Asphalt lacked in height he made up in breadth and, while on the subject, also in smell.

"How come," said Cliff, "he's so short?"

"'N elphant sat on me," said Asphalt, sulkily.

Glod blew his nose.

"Only sat?"

Asphalt was already wearing a "Band With Rocks In" shirt. It was tight across the chest but reached down to the floor.

"Asphalt'll look after you," said Dibbler. "There isn't anything he doesn't know about show business."

Asphalt gave them a big grin.

"You'll be okay with me," he said. "I've worked with 'em all, I have. Been everywhere, done it all."

"We could could go to der Fronts," said Cliff. "No one around dere when de University's on holiday." go to der Fronts," said Cliff. "No one around dere when de University's on holiday."

"Good. Got things to organize," said Dibbler. "See you tonight. The Cavern. Seven o'clock."

He strode off.

"You know the funny thing about him?" said Glod.

"What?"

"The way he was smoking that sausage. Do you think he knew?"

Asphalt grabbed Cliff's bag and slung it easily over his shoulder.

"Let's go, boss," he said.

"An elephant sat on you?" said Buddy, as they crossed the square.

"Yup. At the circus," said Asphalt. "I used to murk 'em arht."

"That's how you got like that?"

"Nope. Din't get like this 'til elephants had sat on me t'ree, fo' times," said the small flat troll. "Dunno why. I'd be cleanin' up after 'em, next minute it'd all be dark."

"I'd have quit after the first time, me," said Glod.

"Nah," said Asphalt, with a contented smile. "Couldn't do that. Show business is in me soul."

Ponder looked down at the thing they had hammered together.

"I don't understand it either," he said. "But...it looks as though we can trap it in a string, and it makes the string play the music again again. It's like an iconograph for sound."

They'd put the wire inside a box, which resonated beautifully. It played the same dozen bars, over and over again.

"A box of music," said Ridcully. "My word."

"What I'd like to try," said Ponder, "is getting the musicians to play in front of a lot of strings like this. Perhaps we could trap the music."

"What for?" said Ridcully. "What on Disc for?"

"Well...if you could get music in boxes you wouldn't need musicians anymore."

Ridcully hesitated. There was a lot to be said for the idea. A world without musicians had a certain appeal. They were a scruffy bunch, in his experience. Quite unhygienic.

He shook his head, reluctantly.

"Not this sort of music," he said. "We want to stop it, not make more of it."

"What exactly is wrong with it?" said Ponder.

"It's...well, can't you see?" said Ridcully. "It makes people act funny. Wear funny clothes. Be rude. Not do what they're told. I can't do a thing with them. It's not right. Besides...remember Mr. Hong."

"It's certainly very unusual," said Ponder. "Can we get some more? For study purposes? Archchancellor?"

Ridcully shrugged. "We follow the Dean," he said.

"Good grief," breathed Buddy, in the huge echoing emptiness. "No wonder they call it the Cavern. It's huge huge."

"I feel dwarfed," said Glod.

Asphalt ambled to the front of the stage.

"One two, one two," he said. "One. One. One two, one tw-"

"Three," said Buddy helpfully.

Asphalt stopped and looked embarrassed.

"Just trying the, you know, just trying the...trying out the..." he muttered. "Just trying...it."

"We'll never fill this," said Buddy.

Glod poked in a box by the side of the stage.

He said, "They might. Look at these."

He unrolled a poster. The others clustered round.

"Dat's a picture of us," said Cliff. "Someone painted a picture of us."

"Looking mean," said Glod.

"'S a good one of Buddy," said Asphalt. "Waving his guitar like that."

"Why's there all that lightning and stuff?" said Buddy.

"I never look dat mean even when I'm mean," said Glod.

"'The New Sounde Dat's Goin' Arounde,'" Cliff read, his forehead wrinkling with the effort.

"'The Bande With Rockes,'" said Glod.

"Oh, no no. It says we're going to be here and everything everything," moaned Glod. "We're dead."

"'Bee There Orr Bee A Rectangular Thyng,'" said Cliff. "I don't understand that."

"There's dozens of these rolls in here," said Glod. "They're posters posters. You know what that means? He's been having them stuck up in places. Talking of which, when the Musicians' Guild gets hold of us-"

"Music's free," said Buddy. "It has to be free."

"What?" said Glod. "Not in this this dwarf's town!" dwarf's town!"

"Then it should be," said Buddy. "People shouldn't have to pay to play music."

"Right! That boy's right! That's just what I've always said! Isn't that what I've always said? That's what I've said, right enough."

Dibbler emerged from the shadows in the wings. There was a troll with him who, Buddy surmised, must have been Chrysoprase. He wasn't particularly big, or even very craggy. In fact he had a smooth and glossy look to him, like a pebble found on a beach. There wasn't a trace of lichen anywhere.

And he was wearing clothes. Clothes, other than uniforms or special work clothes, weren't normally a troll thing. Mostly they wore a loincloth to keep stuff in, and that was that. But Chrysoprase had a suit on. It looked badly tailored. It was in fact very well tailored, but even a troll with no clothes on looks fundamentally badly tailored.

Chrysoprase had been a very quick learner when he arrived in Ankh-Morpork. He began with an important lesson: hitting people was thuggery. Paying other people to do the hitting on your behalf was good business.

"I'd like you lads to meet Chrysoprase," said Dibbler. "An old friend of mine. Me and him go way back. That right, Chrys?"

"Indeed." Chrysoprase gave Dibbler the warm friendly smile a shark bestows on a haddock with whom it suits it, for now, to swim in the same direction. A certain play of silicon muscles in the corners also suggested that, one day, certain people would regret "Chrys."

"Mr. Throat tells me youse boys is the best ting since slicing bread," he said. "Youse got everyting youse need?"

They nodded, mutely. People tended not to speak to Chrysoprase in case they said something that offended him. They wouldn't know it at the time, of course. They'd know it later, when they were in some dark alley and a voice behind them said: Mr. Chrysoprase is really upset really upset.

"Youse go and rest up in your dressing room," he went on. "Youse wants any food or drink, youse only got to say."

He'd got diamond rings on his fingers. Cliff couldn't stop staring at them.

The dressing room was next to the privies and half full of beer barrels. Glod leaned on the door.

"I don't need the money," he said. "Just let me get out of here with my life, that's all I ask."

"Oo ownt ave oo orry-" Cliff began.

"You're trying to speak with your mouth shut, Cliff," said Buddy.

"I said said, you don't have to worry, you've got der wrong sort of teeth," said the troll.

There was a knock on the door. Cliff slammed his hand back over his mouth. But the knock turned out to belong to Asphalt, who was carrying a tray.

There were three types of beer. There were even smoked rat sandwiches with the crusts and tails cut off. And there was a bowl of the finest anthracite coke with ash on it.

"Crunch it up good," moaned Glod, as Cliff took his bowl. "It may be the last chance you get-"

"Maybe no one'll turn up and we can go home?" said Cliff.

Buddy ran his fingers over the strings. The others stopped eating as the chords filled up the room.

"Magic," said Cliff, shaking his head.

"Don't you boys worry," said Asphalt. "If there're any problems, it's the other guys who'll get it in the teeth."

Buddy stopped playing.

"What other guys?"