Neverwhere

right, all right, all right,» Old Bailey was saying. «Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. There was a man walked into a bar. No, he wasn’t a man. That’s the joke. Sorry. He was a horse. A horse . . . no . . . a piece of string. Three pieces of string. Right. Three pieces of string walk into a bar.»
A huge old rook croaked a question. Old Bailey rubbed his chin, then shrugged. «They just do. It’s a joke. They can walk in the joke. He asks for a drink for himself and one for each of his friends. And the barman says, ‘We don’t serve pieces of string here.’ To one of the pieces of string. So. It goes back to its friends and says, ‘They don’t serve strings here’ And it’s a joke, so the middle one does it too, three of them, you see, then the last one, he ties himself around the middle and he pulls the end of him all out. And he orders a drink.» The rook croaked again, sagely. «Three drinks. Right. And the barman says, ‘here, aren’t you one of those pieces of string?’ And he says, the piece of string, he says, ‘No.’I’m a frayed knot.’ Afraid not, y’see, a frayed knot. Pun. Very, very funny.»
The starlings made polite noises. The rooks nodded their heads, put their heads on one side. Then the oldest rook cawed at Old Bailey. «Another? I’m not made of hilarity, y’know. Let me think . . . »
There was a noise from the tent, a deep, pulsing noise, like the beating of a distant heart. Old Bailey hurried into his tent. The noise was coming from an old wooden chest in which Old Bailey kept those things he most prized. He opened the chest. The throbbing noise became much louder. The small silver box was sitting on the top of Old Bailey’s treasures. He reached down one gnarly hand and picked it up. A red light rhythmically pulsed and glowed inside it, like a heartbeat, and shone out through the silver filigree, and through the cracks and fastenings. «He’s in trouble,» said Old Bailey.
The oldest rook cawed a question. «No. It’s not a joke. It’s the marquis,» said Old Bailey. «He’s in deep trouble.»
Richard was halfway through his second plate of breakfast when Serpentine pushed her chair back from the table.
«I think I have had my fill of hospitality,» she said. «Child, young man, good day. Hunter . . . » she paused. Then she ran one clawlike finger along the line of Hunter’s jaw. «Hunter, you are always welcome here.» She nodded to them, imperiously, and stood Up and walked away, followed by her wasp-waisted butler.
«We should leave now,» said Hunter. She stood up from the table, and Door and Richard, more reluctantly, followed her.
They walked along a corridor that was too thin to allow more than one of them to pass at a time. They went up some stone steps. They crossed an iron bridge in the darkness, while Underground trains echoed by beneath them. Then they entered what seemed like an endless network of underground vaults that smelled of damp and decay, of brick and stone and time. «That was your old boss, eh? She seemed nice enough,» said Richard to Hunter. Hunter said nothing.
Door, who had been somewhat subdued, said, «When they want to make children behave themselves in the Underside, they tell them, ‘Behave, or Serpentine will take you.’ »
«Oh,» said Richard. «And you worked for her, Hunter?»
«I worked for all the Seven Sisters.»
«I thought that they hadn’t spoken to each other for, oh, at least thirty years,» said Door.
«Quite possibly. But they were still talking then.»
«How old are you?» asked Door. Richard was pleased she had asked; he would never have dared.
«As old as my tongue,» said Hunter, primly, «and a little older than my teeth.»
«Anyway,» said Richard, in the untroubled tone of voice of one whose hangover had left him and who knew that, somewhere far above them, someone was having a beautiful day, «that was okay. Nice food. And no one was trying to kill us.»
«I’m sure that will remedy itself as the day goes on,» said Hunter, accurately. «Which way to the Black Friars, my lady?»
Door paused and concentrated. «We’ll go the river way,» she said. «Over here.»
«Is he coming round yet?» asked Mr. Croup.
Mr. Vandemar prodded the marquis’s prone body with one long finger. The breathing was shallow. «Not yet, Mister Croup. I think I broke him.»
«You must be more careful with your toys, Mister Vandemar,» said Mr. Croup.

«So what are you after?» Richard asked Hunter. The three of them were walking, with extreme care, along the bank of an underground river. The bank was slippery, a narrow path along dark rock and sharp masonry. Richard watched with respect as the gray water rushed and tumbled, within arm’s reach. This was not the kind of river you fell into