'Og orsk… ugger! Usht arg ogent—' Cribbins turned his back, and against a chorus of snaps and two ings dragged the wretched dentures around the right way. Damned things! Why he'd ever bothered to lever them out of the old man's mouth he'd never know.
'I do beg your pardon, shister, a little dental mishap there…' he murmured, turning back and dabbing at his mouth. 'Pray continue.'
'It's funny you should say that, reverend,' said the woman, her eyes bright with nervousness, 'because I belong to a small group of ladies who run, well, a god of the month club. Er… that is, we pick a god and believe in him… or her, obviously, or it, although we draw the line at the ones with teeth and too many legs, er, and then we pray to them for a month and then we sit down and discuss it. Well, there's so many, aren't there? Thousands! We've not really considered Om, though, but if you would care to give us a little talk next Tuesday I'm sure we'll be happy to give him a jolly good try!'
Springs pinged as Cribbins gave her a huge smile. 'What is your name, shister?' he asked.
'Berenice,' she said. 'Berenice, er, Houser.'
Ah, no longer using the bastard's name, very wise, thought Cribbins. 'What a wonderful idea, Berenice,' he said. 'I would consider it a pleshure!'
She beamed.
'There wouldn't be any biscuits, would there, Berenice?' Cribbins added.
Ms Houser blushed. 'I believe I have some chocolate ones somewhere,' she volunteered, as if letting him into a big secret.
'May Anoia rattle your drawers, shister,' said Cribbins to her retreating back.
Wonderful, he thought, as she bustled off, blushing and happy. He tucked his notebook into his jacket and sat back and listened to the ticking of the clock on the wall and the gentle snores of the beggars, who were the normal habitues of this office on a hot afternoon. All was peaceful, settled, organized, just like life ought to be.
It was going to be the gravy boat for him from this day forward.
If he was very, very careful.
Moist ran down the lengths of the vaults towards the brilliant light at the far end. There was a tableau of peacefulness. Hubert was standing in front of the Glooper, occasionally tapping a pipe. Igor was blowing some curious glass creation over his little forge and Mr Clamp, formerly known as Owlswick Jenkins, was sitting at his desk with a faraway look on his face.
Moist sensed the doom ahead. Something was wrong. It might not be even a particular thing, it was just a sheer platonic wrongness — and he did not like Mr Clamp's expression at all.
Nevertheless, the human brain which survives by hoping from one second to another will always endeavour to put off the moment of truth. Moist approached the desk, rubbing his hands together. 'How's it going then, Owl— I mean Mr Clamp', he said. 'Finished it yet, have we?'
'Oh, yes,' said Clamp, a strange, mirthless little smile on his face. 'Here it is.'
On the desk in front of him was the other side of the first proper dollar bill ever to be designed. Moist had seen pictures quite like it, but they had been when he was four years old in nursery school. The face of what was presumably meant to be Lord Vetinari had two dots for eyes and a broad grin. The panorama of the vibrant city of Ankh-Morpork appeared to consist of a lot of square houses, with a window, all square, in each corner and a door in the middle.
'I think it's one of the best things I have ever done,' said Clamp.
Moist patted him convivially on the shoulder and then marched towards Igor, who was already looking defensive.
'What have you done to that man?' said Moist.
'I have made him a well-balanthed perthonality, no longer bethet with ancthietieth, fearth and the demonth of paranoia,' said Igor.
Moist glanced at Igor's workbench, a brave thing to do by any standards. On it was a jar with something indistinct floating in it. Moist looked closer, another minor act of heroism when you were in an Igor-rich environment.
It was not a happy turnip. It was blotchy. It was bouncing gently from one side of the jar to another, occasionally turning over. 'I see,' said Moist. 'But it would appear, regrettably, that by giving our friend the relaxed and hopeful attitude to life of, not to put too fine a point on it, a turnip, you have also given him the artistic abilities of, and I have no hesitation in using the term again, a turnip.'
'But he ith much happier in himthelf,' said Igor.
'Granted, but how much of himself is, and I really don't wish to keep repeating myself here, of a root-vegetable-like nature?'
Igor considered this for some time. 'Ath a medical man, thur,' he said, 'I mutht conthider what ith betht for the pathient. At the moment he ith happy and content and hath no careth in the world. Why would he give up all thith for a mere fathility with a penthil?'
Moist was aware of an insistent bonk-bonk. It was the turnip banging itself against the side of the jar. 'That is an interesting and philosophical point,' he said, once again looking at Clamp's happy yet somewhat unfocused expression. 'But it seems to me that all those nasty little details were what made him, well, him.' The frantic banging of the vegetable grew louder. Igor and Moist stared from the jar to the eerily smiling man.
'Igor, I'm not sure you know what makes people tick.'
Igor gave an avuncular little chuckle. 'Oh, believe me, thur—'
'Igor?' said Moist.
'Yeth, Marthter,' said Igor gloomily.
'Go and fetch the damn wires again, will you.' 'Yeth, Marthter.'
Moist got back upstairs again to find himself in the middle of a panic. A tearful Miss Drapes spotted him and click-clicked over, at speed.
'It's Mr Bent, sir. He just rushed out, yelling! We can't find him anywhere!'
'Why are you looking?' said Moist, and then realized he'd said it aloud. 'I meant, what is the reason for you looking?'
The story unfolded. As Miss Drapes talked Moist got the impression that all the other listeners were getting the point and he wasn't.
'So, okay, he made a mistake,' he said. 'No harm done, is there? It's all been sorted out, right? A bit embarrassing, I dare say…' But, he reminded himself, an error is worse than a sin, isn't it?
But that's plain daft, his sensible self pointed out. He could have said something like: 'You see? Even I can make a mistake through a moment's inattention! We must be forever vigilant!' Or he could have said: 'I did this on purpose to test you!' Even schoolteachers know that one. I can think of half a dozen ways to wriggle out of something like that. But then I'm a wriggler. I don't think he's ever wriggled in his life.
'I hope he hasn't done something… silly,' said Miss Drapes, fishing a crumpled handkerchief out of a sleeve.
Something… silly, thought Moist. That's the phrase people used when they were thinking about someone jumping into the river or taking the entire contents of the medicine box in one go. Silly things like that.
'I've never met a less silly man,' he said.
'Well, er… we've always wondered about him, to be honest,' said a clerk. 'I mean, he's in at dawn and one of the cleaners told me he's often in here late at night— What? What? That hurt!'
Miss Drapes, who had nudged him hard, now whispered urgently in his ear. The man deflated and looked awkwardly at Moist. 'Sorry, sir, I spoke out of turn,' he mumbled.
'Mr Bent is a good man, Mr Lipwig,' said Miss Drapes. 'He drives himself hard.'
'Drives all of you hard, it seems to me,' said Moist.
This attempt at solidarity with the labouring masses didn't seem to hit the mark.
'If you can't stand the heat, get off the pot, that's what I say,' said a senior clerk, and there was a general murmur of agreement.
'Er, I think you get out of the kitchen,' said Moist.' "Get off the pot" is the alternative when—'
'Half the chief cashiers in the Plains have worked in this room,' said Miss Drapes. 'And quite a few managers, now. And Miss Lee, who's deputy manager of Apsly's Commercial Bank in Sto Lat, she got the job because of the letter Mr Bent wrote. Bent-trained, you see. That counts for a lot.
If you've got a reference from Mr Bent, you can walk into any bank and get a job with a snap of your fingers.'
'And if you stay, the pay here is better than anywhere,' a clerk put in. 'He told the Board, if they want the best, they'd have to pay for it!'
'Oh, he's demanding,' said another clerk, 'but I hear they're all working for a Human Resources Manager at Pipeworth's Bank now, and if it comes to that I'll take Mr Bent any day of the week. At least he thinks I'm a person. I was hearing where she was timing how long people spent in the privy!'
'They call it Time and Motion study,' said Moist. 'Look, I expect Mr Bent just wants to be alone for a while. Who was he yelling at, the lad who'd made a mistake?… or didn't make it, I mean.'
'That was young Hammersmith,' said Miss Drapes. 'We sent him home because he was in a bit of a state. And no, Mr Bent wasn't really shouting at him. He wasn't really shouting at anybody. He was—' She paused, searching for a word.
'Gibbering,' said the clerk who had spoken out of turn, giving the turn another twist, 'and you don't all have to look at me like that. You all heard him. And he looked as though he'd seen a ghost.'
Clerks were wandering back into the counting house in ones and twos. They'd searched everywhere, was the general agreement, and there was strong support for the theory that he'd gone out through the Mint, it being rather busy in there with all the work still going on. Moist doubted it. The bank was old, and old buildings have all sorts of crannies, and Mr Bent had been here for—
'How long has he been here?' he wondered aloud.
The general consensus was 'since the mind of man can remember' but Miss Drapes, who it seemed for some reason had made herself well informed on the subject of Mavolio Bent, volunteered that it was thirty-nine years and that he had got a job when he was thirteen by sitting on the steps all night until the chairman came to work and impressing him with his command of numbers. He went from messenger boy to chief cashier in twenty years.
'Speedy!' said Moist.
'Never had a day off for illness, either,' Miss Drapes concluded.
'Well. Perhaps he's entitled to some now,' said Moist. 'Do you know where he lives, Miss Drapes?'
'Mrs Cake's boarding house.'
'Really? That's a bit' — Moist stopped and chose from a number of options — 'low rent, isn't it?'
'He says that as a bachelor it meets his needs,' said Miss Drapes, and avoided Moist's gaze.
Moist could feel the day slipping away from him. But they were all staring at him. There was only one thing he could say if he was to maintain his image.
'Then I think I ought to see if he's gone there,' said Moist. Their faces broke into smiles of relief. He added: 'But I think that one of you should come with me. After all, you know him.' It looks as though I don't, he thought.
'I'll fetch my coat,' said Miss Drapes. The only reason that her words came out at the speed of sound was that she couldn't make them go any faster.
Chapter 8
As Below, so Above — No gain without pain — A mind for puzzles — Mr Bent's sad past — Something in the wardrobe — Wonderful money — Thoughts on madness, by Igor — A pot thickens
HUBERT TAPPED THOUGHTFULLY on one of the Glooper's tubes. 'Igor?' he said.
'Yeth, marthter?' said Igor, behind him.
Hubert jumped. 'I thought you were over by your lightning cells!' he managed.
'I wath, thur, but I am here now. What wath it you wanted?'
'You've wired up all the valves, Igor. I can't make any changes!'
'Yeth, thur,' said Igor calmly. 'There would be amathingly dire conthequentheth, thur.'
'But I want to change some parameters, Igor,' said Hubert, absent-mindedly taking a rain hat off the peg.
'I'm afraid there ith a problem, thur. You athked me to make the Glooper ath accurate ath poththible.'
'Well, of course. Accuracy is vital.'
'It ith… extremely accurate, thur,' said Igor, looking uncomfortable. 'Poththibly too accurate, thur.'
This 'poththibly' caused Hubert to grope for an umbrella. 'How can anything be too accurate?'
Igor looked round. Suddenly he was on edge. 'Would you mind if I wind down on the lisp a little?'
'Can you do that?'
'Oh yeth… or, indeed, yes, sir. But it's a clan thing, you see. It's expected, like the stitcheth. But I think you will find the explanation hard enough to understand as it is.'
'Well, er, thank you. Go ahead, please.'
It was quite a long explanation. Hubert listened with care, his mouth open. The term 'cargo cult' whirled past, and was followed by a short dissertation on the hypothesis that all water, everywhere, knows where all the other water is, some interesting facts about hyphenated silicon and what happens to it in the presence of cheese, the benefits and hazards of morphic resonation in areas of high background magic, the truth about identical twins and the fact that if the fundamental occult maxim 'As Above, so Below' was true, then so was 'As Below, so Above'…
The silence that followed was broken only by the tinkle of water in the Glooper, and the sound of the former Owlswick's pencil as he worked away with demon-haunted skill.
'Do you mind going back to lisping, please?' said Hubert. 'I don't know why, it just sounds better that way.'
'Very good, thur.'
'All right. Now, are you really saying that I can now change the economic life of the city by adjusting the Glooper? It's like a witch's wax doll and I've got all the pins?'
'That ith correct, thur. A very nithe analogy.'
Hubert stared at the crystal masterpiece. The light in the undercroft was changing all the time as the economic life of the city pumped itself around the tubes, some of them no thicker than a hair.
'It's an economic model, in fact, which is the real thing?'
'They are identical, thur.'
'So with one hammer blow I could throw the city into an irrevocable economic crash?'
'Yes, thur. Do you want me to fetch a hammer?'
Hubert stared up at the rushing, trickling, foaming thing that was the Glooper and his eyes bulged. He started to giggle but it grew very quickly into a laugh.
'Haha! Ahahaha!!! AHAHAHAHA!!!!… Can you get me a glass of water, please?… HAHAHAHA!!! Hahahahaha!!… HAHA HAHA!!!—' The laughter stopped abruptly. 'That can't be right, Igor.'
'Really, thur?'
'Yes indeed! Look at our old friend Flask 244a! Can you see it? It's empty!'
'Indeed, thur?'
'Indeed indeed', said Hubert. 'Flask 244a represents the gold in our very own vaults, Igor. And ten tons of gold don't just get up and walk away! Eh? HAHAHAHA!!! Could you get me that glass of water I asked for? Hahaha aha!!… HAHA HAHA!!!—'
A smile played around Cosmo's lips, which was a dangerous playground for anything as innocent as a smile.
'All of them?' he said.
'Well, all the counting house clerks,' said Heretofore. 'They just ran out into the street. Some of them were in tears.'
'A panic in fact,' murmured Cosmo. He looked at the picture of Vetinari opposite his desk and was sure it winked at him.
'Apparently it was some problem with the chief cashier, sir.'
'Mr Bent?'
'Apparently he made a mistake, sir. They said he was muttering to himself and then just ran out of the room. They said that some of the staff had gone back in to search for him.'
'Mavolio Bent made a mistake? I think not,' said Cosmo.
'They say he ran off, sir.'
Cosmo very nearly raised an eyebrow without mechanical aid. It was that close.
'Ran off? Was he carrying any large and heavy bags? They usually do.'
'I believe he wasn't, sir,' said Heretofore.
'That would have been… helpful.'
Cosmo leaned back in his chair, pulled off the black glove for the third time today, and held out his hand at arm's length. The ring did look impressive, especially against the pale blue of his finger.
'Have you ever seen a r
un on a bank, Drumknott?' he said. 'Have you ever seen the crowds fighting for their money?'
'No, sir,' said Heretofore, who was beginning to worry again. The tight boots had been, well, funny, but surely a finger shouldn't look that colour?
'It's a dreadful sight. It's like watching a beached whale being eaten alive by crabs,' said Cosmo, turning his hand so that the light showed up the shadowy V. 'It may squirm in its agony, but there can be only one outcome. It is a terrible thing, if done properly.'
This is how Vetinari thinks, his soul exulted. Plans can break down. You cannot plan the future. Only presumptuous fools plan. The wise man steers.
'As a director of the bank and, of course, a concerned citizen,' he said dreamily, 'I shall now write a letter to the Times!
'Yes, sir, of course,' said Heretofore, 'and shall I send for a jeweller, sir? I understand they have some fine little snips that—'
'No pain without gain, Drumknott. It sharpens my thinking.' The glove went back on.
'Er…' and then Heretofore gave up. He'd tried his best, but Cosmo was bent on his own destruction, and all a sensible man could do was to make as much money as possible and then stay alive to spend it.
'I've had another stroke of luck, sir,' he ventured. He'd have liked more time, but it was clear that time was getting short.
'Indeed? What is this?'
'That project I have been working on…'
'Very expensively? Yes?'
'I believe I can get you Vetinari's stick, sir.'
'You mean his swordstick?'
'Yes, sir. As far as I know the blade has never been drawn in anger.'
'I understood it was always close to him.'
'I didn't say it would be easy, sir. Or cheap. But after much, much work I now see a clear way,' said Heretofore.
'They say the steel of the blade was taken from the iron in the blood of a thousand men…'
'So I have heard, sir.'
'Have you seen it?'
'Very briefly, sir.'
For the first time in his career, Heretofore found himself feeling sorry for Cosmo. There was a kind of yearning in the man's voice. He didn't want to usurp Vetinari. There were plenty of people in the city who wanted to usurp Vetinari. But Cosmo wanted to be Vetinari.
Making Money d-36 Page 23
