'D'you know much about art, Nobby?'
'If necessary, sarge.'
'Oh, come on, Nobby!'
'What? Tawneee says what she does is Art, sarge. And she wears more clothes than
a lot of the women on the walls around here, so why be sniffy about it?'
'Yeah, but' Fred Colon hesitated here. He knew in his heart that spinning upside
down around a pole wearing a costume you could floss with definitely was not Art,
and being painted lying on a bed wearing nothing but a smile and a small bunch of
grapes was good solid Art, but putting your finger on why this was the case was a bit
tricky.
'No urns,' he said at last.
'What urns?' said Nobby.
'Nude women are only Art if there's an urn in it,' said Fred Colon. This sounded a bit
weak even to him, so he added, 'or a plinth. Both is best, o'course. It's a secret sign,
see, that they put in to say that it's Art and okay to look at.'
'What about a potted plant?'
'That's okay if it's in an urn.'
'What about if it's not got an urn or a plinth or a potted plant?' said Nobby.
'Have you one in mind, Nobby?' said Colon suspiciously.
'Yes, The Goddess Anoia Arising from the Cutlery,' said Nobby. 'They've got it here. It was
painted by a bloke with three i's in his name, which sounds pretty artistic to me.'
'The number of i's is important, Nobby,' said Sergeant Colon gravely, 'but in these
situations you have to ask yourself: where's the cherub? If there's a little fat pink kid holding a mirror or a fan or similar, then it's still okay. Even if he's grinning. Obviously
you can't get urns everywhere.''

Like it was haunted, Dave said. He said the government
hushed it up.'
'Yeah, but your mate Dave says the government always hushes things up, Nobby,'
said Fred.
'Well, they do.'
'Except he always gets to hear about 'em, and he never gets hushed up,' said Fred.
'I know you like to point the finger of scoff, sarge, but there's a lot goes on that we
don't know about.'
'Like what, exactly?' Colon retorted. 'Name me one thing that's going on that you
don't know about. There - you can't, can you?'

'Ah,' said Nobby, 'right. You should have said. We're after weapons that don't hurt people,
right?'
'Corporal Nobbs?' said Sergeant Colon, who'd been even closer to the flame than Carrot.
'Yes, sarge?'
'You heard Corporal Carrot. No heathen weapons. Anyway, how come you know so much
about all this stuff?'
'Milit'ry service.'
'Really, Nobby?' said Carrot.
'Had a special job, sir. Very responsible.'
'And what was that?'
'Quartermaster, sir,' said Nobby, saluting smartly.
'You were a quartermaster?' said Carrot. 'In whose army?'
'Duke of Pseudopolis, sir.'
'But Pseudopolis always lost its wars!'
'Ah . . . well . . .'
'Who did you sell the weapons to?'
'That's a slander, that is! They just used to spend a lot of time away for polishing and
sharpening.'