‘You got no soul, Fred,’ said Nobby. 'I wouldn’t’ve minded being a knight in shining armour. That’s what a king does if you’re useful. He makes you a knight.’
'A night watchman in crappy armour is about your métier,’ said Colon, who looked around proudly to see if anyone had noticed the slanty thing over the e.
Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms
‘He was in the scrap we had against Pseudopolis and my great-gran gave him this book of prayers for soldiers, ’cos you need all the prayers you can get, believe you me, and he stuck it in the top pocket of his jerkin, ’cos he couldn’t afford armour, and next day in battle – whoosh, this arrow came out of nowhere, wham, straight into this book and it went all the way through to the last page before stopping, look. You can see the hole.’
‘Pretty miraculous,’ Carrot agreed.
‘Yeah, it was, I s’pose,’ said the sergeant. He looked ruefully at the battered volume. ‘Shame about the other seventeen arrows, really.’
Terry Pratchett, Jingo
Lord Vetinari paused. He found it difficult to talk to Frederick Colon. He dealt on a daily basis with people who treated conversation as a complex game, and with Colon he had to keep on adjusting his mind in case he overshot.
Terry Pratchett, The Fifth Elephant
A penny could drop through wet cement faster than it could drop for Fred Colon.
Terry Pratchett, The Fifth Elephant
‘I have put my best men on the job, sir.’
Who’s looking worried?
‘Sergeant Colon and Corporal Nobbs.
Who’s looking relieved?
‘Very experienced men. The keystones of the Watch.’
Terry Pratchett, Jingo
‘He makes them rubber wallies, sah.’
‘Ah. The preventatives.’
‘Lot of people don’t agree with that sort of thing, sah.’
‘So I understand.’
Colon drew himself up to attention again. ‘Not natural, in my view, sah. Not in favour of unnatural things.’
Vetinari looked perplexed. ‘You mean, you eat your meat raw and sleep in a tree?’
Terry Pratchett, The Fifth Elephant
‘To be sure. I have here another complaint of over-enthusiastic clamping. I’m sure you know to what I refer.’
‘It was causing serious traffic congestion, sah!’
‘Quite so. It is well known for it. But it is, in fact, the opera house.’
Terry Pratchett, The Fifth Elephant
‘Any word on the street?’
‘Yes, sir. It’s “Halt”, sir. Sergeant Colon painted it at the top of Lower Broadway.’
Terry Pratchett, The Fifth Elephant
Sergeant Colon and Corporal Nobbs had gone on patrol. They weren’t sure why they were patrolling, and what they were supposed to do if they saw a crime, although many years of training had enabled them not to see some quite large crimes.
Terry Pratchett, Jingo
‘We wrestled a confession out of it,’ said Sergeant Colon, hopping up and down. 'It kept on admitting it, but we got it to confess in the end! And we’ve got these other crimes we’d like taken into consideration.’
Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay