Joseph Mallord William Turner Fishermen at Sea

Joseph Mallord William Turner Fishermen at SeaJohn Singer Sargent El JaleoFrancois Boucher Leda and the Swan
'It'd be for his own good, you'll see. Make a man of him.'
'Ah. Well. There's certainly plenty of raw material,' sighed Lezek.

Mort was getting interested in the rock. It had curly shells in it, relics of the early days of the world when the Creator had made creatures out of stone, no-one knew why.
Mort was . Mort threw the rock at a pigeon, which was almost too full to lurch out of the way, and wandered back across the field.

And that was why Mort and his father walked down through the mountains into Sheepridge on Hogswatch Eve, with Mort's rather sparse possessions in a sack interested in lots of things. Why people's teeth fitted together so neatly, for example. He'd given that one a lot of thought. Then there was the puzzle of why the sun came out during the day, instead of at night when the light would come in useful. He knew the standard explanation, which somehow didn't seem satisfying.In short, Mort was one of those people who are more dangerous than a bag full of rattlesnakes. He was determined to discover the underlying logic behind the universe.Which was going to be hard, because there wasn't one. The Creator had a lot of remarkably good ideas when he put the world together, but making it understandable hadn't been one of them.Tragic heroes always moan when the gods take an interest in them, but it's the people the gods ignore who get the really tough deals.His father was yelling at him, as usual