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He might make a mistake, and pass.

His dead uncle had left him a small fortune not to be a wizard. He hadn’t realized it when he’d drawn up the will, but that’s what the old man had done. He thought he was helping his nephew through college, but Victor Tugelbend was a very bright young lad in an oblique sort of way and had reasoned thusly:

What are the advantages and disadvantages of being a wizard? Well, you got a certain amount of prestige, but you were often in dangerous situations and certainly always at risk of being killed by a fellow mage. He saw no future in being a well-respected corpse.

On the other hand …

What are the advantages and disadvantages of being a student wizard? You got quite a lot of free time, a certain amount of licence in matters like drinking a lot of ale and singing bawdy songs, no-one tried to kill you much except in the ordinary, everyday Ankh-Morpork way of things and, thanks to the legacy, you also got a modest but comfortable style of living. Of course, you didn’t get much in the way of prestige but at least you were alive to know this.

So Victor had devoted a considerable amount of energy in studying firstly the terms of the will, the byzantine examination regulations of Unseen University, and every examination paper of the last fifty years.

The pass mark in Finals was 88.

Failing would be easy. Any idiot can fail.

Victor’s uncle had been no fool. One of the conditions of the legacy was that, should Victor ever achieve a mark of less than 80, the money supply would dry up like thin spit on a hot stove.

He’d won, in a way. Few students had ever studied as hard as Victor. It was said that his knowledge of magic rivalled that of some of the top wizards. He spent hours in a comfy chair in the Library, reading grimoires. He researched answer formats and exam techniques. He listened to lectures until he could quote them by heart. He was generally considered by the staff to be the brightest and certainly the busiest student for decades and, at every Finals, he carefully and competently got a mark of 84.

It was uncanny.^{11}

The Archchancellor reached the last page.

Eventually he said: ‘Ah. I see. Feel sorry for the lad, do you?’

‘I don’t think you quite see what I mean,’ said the Bursar.

‘Fairly obvious to me,’ said the Archchancellor. ‘Lad keeps coming within an ace of passin’.’ He pulled out one of the papers. ‘Anyway, it says here he passed three years ago. Got 91.’

‘Yes, Archchancellor. But he appealed.’

‘Appealed? Against passin’?’

‘He said he didn’t think the examiners had noticed that he got the allotropes of octiron wrong in question six. He said he couldn’t live with his conscience. He said it would haunt him for the rest of his days if he succeeded unfairly over better and more worthy students. You’ll notice he got only 82 and 83 in the next two exams.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘We think he was playing safe, Master.’

The Archchancellor drummed his fingers on the desk.

‘Can’t have this,’ he said. ‘Can’t have someone goin’ around almost bein’ a wizard and laughin’ at us up his, his — what’s it that people laugh up?’

‘My feelings exactly,’ purred the Bursar.

‘We should send him up,’ said the Archchancellor firmly.

‘Down, Master,’ said the Bursar. ‘Sending him up would mean making spiteful and satirical comments about him.’

‘Yes. Good thinkin’. Let’s do that,’ said the Archchancellor.

‘No, Master,’ said the Bursar patiently. ‘He’s sending us up, so we send him down.’

‘Right. Balance things up,’ said the Archchancellor. The Bursar rolled his eyes. ‘Or down,’ the Archchancellor added. ‘So you want me to give him his marchin’ orders, eh? Just send him along in the morning and—’

‘No, Archchancellor. We can’t do it just like that.’

‘We can’t? I thought we were in charge here!’

‘Yes, but you have to be extremely careful when dealing with Master Tugelbend. He’s an expert on procedures. So what I thought we could do is give him this paper in the finals tomorrow.’

The Archchancellor took the proffered document. His lips moved silently as he read it.

‘Just one question.’

‘Yes. And he’ll either pass or fail. I’d like to see him manage 84 per cent on that.’

In a sense which his tutors couldn’t quite define, much to their annoyance, Victor Tugelbend was also the laziest person in the history of the world.

Not simply, ordinarily lazy. Ordinary laziness was merely the absence of effort. Victor had passed through there a long time ago, had gone straight through commonplace idleness and out on the far side. He put more effort into avoiding work than most people put into hard labour.

He had never wanted to be a wizard. He’d never wanted much, except perhaps to be left alone and not woken up until midday. When he’d been small, people had said things like, ‘And what do you want to be, little man?’ and he’d said, ‘I don’t know. What have you got?’

They didn’t let you get away with that sort of thing for very long. It wasn’t enough to be what you were, you had to be working to be something else.