The Bear and Barnacle

Rincewind had been sent to clean the bathrooms; on the theory that there wasn’t much in there he could break. He had however, been informed in no uncertain terms, that if he broke the mirror, seven years bad luck would be just the beginning of his troubles. He trundled the mop and bucket into the dank room and looked around with a scowl. “Call this a bathroom?” he muttered as he savagely swilled the mop in the bucket. “This isn’t a patch on Johnson’s Patent ‘Typhoon’ Superior Indoor Ablutorium with Automatic Soap Dish (Rubber Duck Optional but Recommended), a sanitary poem in mahogany, rosewood and copper.” Rincewind sighed, wrung out the mop and started to work by the door. “It had boilers and tanks and pipes!” he muttered, carefully moving around the sinks. “Brass taps that looked like mermaids and shells,” he moved the bin out of the way, picking up a few wadded pieces of paper towels as he did. “An amazing bathroom,” Rincewind went on, trying not to look at the urinals as he mopped up around them. He had to do it twice. “It had a whole wardrobe for dressing gowns and a big blower thingy so you got bubbly water without eating starchy food.” Rincewind tried mopping the graffiti off the walls, after spending some moments trying to work out the anatomy. It didn’t work, so he shrugged and moved on. “It even had a special pot for your toenail clippings so they didn’t fall into the wrong hands. Not a thing like this!” He looked around the pub’s bathroom, then sighed again as he realised he’d mopped himself into a corner. “Of course, it was a Johnson,” he said as he waited for the floor to dry so he could leave. “He did the University Organ as well and to him, pipes were pipes. I wonder what really happened when the Archchancellor was taking a shower while the Librarian was playing Bubbla’s Catastrophe Suite? He never said.”