It looked like the sort of book described in library catalogues as "slightly foxed", although it would be more honest to admit that it looked as though it had been badgered, wolved and possibly beared as well.
Something small and distant broke through the cloud layer, trailing shreds of vapour. In the stratospheric calm the sounds of bickering came sharp and clear. "You said you could fly one of these things!" "No I didn't; I just said you couldn't!"
-"Pull me up, then," he hinted.
- "I think that might be sort of difficult," grunted Twoflower. "I don't
actually think I can do it, in fact."
- "What are you holding on to, then?"
- "You."
- "I mean besides me."
- "What do you mean, besides you?" said Twoflower
-"If you're going to suggest I try dropping twenty feet down a pitch dark
tower in the hope of hitting a couple of greasy little steps which might
not even still be there, you can forget it," said Rincewind sharply.
- "There is an alternative, then."
- "Out with it, man."
- "You could drop five hundred feet down a pitch black tower and hit stones
which certainly are there," said Twoflower.
Dead silence from below him. Then Rincewind said, accusingly, "That was sarcasm."
He felt that the darkness was full of unimaginable horrors - and the trouble with unimaginable horrors was that they were only too easy to imagine...
Several trees tried to strike up a conversation, but Rincewind was nearly certain that this was not normal behaviour for trees and ignored them.
The point is that descriptive writing is very rarely entirely accurate and during the reign of Olaf Quimby II as Patrician of Ankh some legislation was passed in a determined attempt to put a stop to this sort of thing and introduce some honesty into reporting. Thus, if a legend said of a notable here that 'all men spoke of his prowess' any bard who valued his life would add hastily 'except for a couple of people in his home village who thought he was a liar, and quite a lot of other people who had never really heard of him.'
It was the sort of grin people use when they stare at your left ear and tell you in an urgent tone of voice that they are being spied on by secret agents from the next galaxy. It was not a grin to inspire confidence.
More horrible grins had probably been seen, but only on the sort of grinner that is orange with black stripes, has a long tail and hangs around in jungles looking for victims to grin at.
