Making Money (47 page)

There was a crackle of paper as Drumknott found the right page.

“Well, there is a very good likeness of Mr. Fusspot.” Under Vetinari’s chair the dog opened his eyes at the sound of his name. So did his new master, with more urgency.

“Surely he has nothing in his mouth?”

“No, sir, it is empty,” said Drumknott calmly. “This is the Times of Ankh-Morpork, sir.”

Vetinari relaxed again. “Continue.”

“He is on a leash, sir, and looking unaccustomedly ferocious. You are holding the leash, sir. In front of him, and backing nervously into a corner, are a group of very fat cats. They are wearing top hats, sir.”

“As cats do, yes.” Vetinari nodded.

“And they have the words
THE BANKS
on them,” Drumknott added.

“Subtle indeed!”

“While you, sir, are waving a handful of paper money at them and the speech bubble says—”

“Don’t tell me. ‘THIS does NOT taste of pineapple’?”

“Well done, sir. Incidentally, it does so happen that the chairmen of the rest of the city banks wish to see you, at your convenience.”

“Good. This afternoon, then.”

Vetinari got up and walked over to the window. The fog was thinning, but its drifting cloud still obscured the city.

“Mr. Lipwig is a very…popular young man, is he not, Drumknott?” said Vetinari, staring into the gloom.

“Oh yes, sir,” said the secretary, folding up the newspaper. “Extremely so. The Times likes him. The people seem to like him. He is an entertainer, and much is forgiven of such people.”

“And very confident in himself, I think.”

“I would say so.”

“And loyal?”

“He took a pie for you, sir.”

“A tactical thinker at speed, then.”

“Oh yes.”

“Bearing in mind his own future was riding on the pie as well.”

“He is certainly sensitive to political currents, no doubt about it,” said Drumknott, picking up his bundle of files.

“And, as you say, popular,” said Vetinari, still a gaunt outline against the fog.

Drumknott waited. Moist was not the only one sensitive to political currents.

“An asset to the city, indeed,” said Vetinari, after a while. “And we should not waste him. Obviously, though, he should be at the Royal Bank long enough to bend it to his satisfaction,” Vetinari mused. Drumknott said nothing, but arranged some of the files into a more pleasing order. A name struck him, and he shifted a file to the top.

“Of course, then he will get restless again and become a danger to others as well as himself…”

Drumknott smiled at his files. His hand hovered…

“Apropos of nothing, how old is Mr. Creaser?”

“The taxmaster? In his seventies, sir,” said Drumknott, opening the file he had just selected. “Yes, seventy-four, it says here.”

“We have recently pondered his methods, have we not?”

“Indeed we have, sir. Last week.”

“Not a man with a flexible cast of mind, I feel. A little at sea in the modern world. Holding someone upside down over a bucket and giving them a good shaking is not the way forward. I won’t blame him when he decides to take an honorable and well-earned retirement.”

“Yes sir. When would you like him to decide that, sir?” said Drumknott.

“No rush,” said Vetinari. “No rush.”

“Have you given any thought to his successor? It’s not a job that creates friends,” said Drumknott. “It would need a special sort of person.”

“I shall ponder it,” said Vetinari. “No doubt a name will present itself.”

T
HE BANK STAFF
were at work early, pushing through the crowds who were filling the street because (a) this was another act in the wonderful street theater that was Ankh-Morpork and (b) there was going to be big trouble if their money had gone missing. There was, however, no sign of Mr. Bent or Miss Drapes.

Moist was in the Mint. Mr. Spools’s men had, well, they’d done their best. It’s an apologetic phrase, commonly used to mean that the result is just one step above mediocre, but their best was one leap above superb.

“I’m sure we can improve them,” said Mr. Spools, as Moist gloated.

“They are perfect, Mr. Spools!”

“Anything but. But it’s kind of you to say so. We’ve done seventy thousand so far.”

“Nothing like enough!”

“With respect, we are not printing a newspaper here. But we’re getting better. You have talked about other denominations…?”

“Oh, yes. Two, five, and ten dollars to start with. And the fives and tens will talk.”

Nothing like enough, he thought, as the colors of money flowed through his fingers. People will queue up for this. They won’t want the grubby, heavy coins, not when they see this! Backed by golems! What is a coin compared to the hand that holds it? That’s worth! That’s value! Hm, yes, that’d look good on the two-dollar note, too, I’d better remember that.

“The money…will talk?” said Mr. Spools carefully.

“Imps,” said Moist. “They’re only a sort of intelligent spell. They don’t even have to have a shape. We’ll print them on the higher denominations.”

“Do you think the university will agree to that?” said Spools.

“Yes, because I’m going to put Ridcully’s head on the five-dollar note. I’ll go and talk to Ponder Stibbons. This looks like a job for inadvisably applied magic if ever I saw one.”

“And what would the money say?”

“Anything we want it to. ‘Is your purchase really necessary?’ perhaps, or ‘Why not save me for a rainy day?’ The possibilities are endless!”

“It usually says good-bye to me,” said a printer, to ritual amusement.

“Well, maybe we can make it blow you a kiss as well,” said Moist. He turned to the Men of the Sheds, who were beaming and gleaming with newfound importance. “Now, if some of you gentlemen will help me carry this lot into the bank…”

The hands of the clock were chasing one another to the top of the hour when Moist arrived at the head of the procession, and there was still no sign of Mr. Bent.

“Is that clock right?” said Moist, as the hands began the relaxing stroll to the half hour.

“Oh yes, sir,” said a counter clerk. “Mr. Bent sets it twice a day.”

“Maybe, but he hasn’t been here for more than—”

The doors swung open, and there he was. Moist had, for some reason, expected the clown outfit, but this was the smooth and shiny, ironed-in-his-clothes Bent with the smart jacket and pinstripe trousers and—

—the red nose. And he was arm-in-arm with Miss Drapes.

The staff stared at it all, too shocked for a reaction.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” said Bent, his voice echoing in the silence. “I owe so many apologies. I have made many mistakes. Indeed, my whole life has been a mistake. I believed that true worth lodged in lumps of metal, metal which I doubt we shall see again. Much of what I believed is worthless, in fact, but Mr. Lipwig believed in me and so I am here today. Let us make money based not on a trick of geology but on the ingenuity of hand and brain. And now—” he paused, because Miss Drapes had squeezed his arm.

“Oh, yes, how could I forget,” Bent went on, “what I do now believe with all my heart is that Miss Drapes will marry me in the Chapel of Fun in the Fools’ Guild on Saturday, the ceremony to be conducted by the Reverend Brother ‘Whacko’ Whopply. You are all, of course, invited—”

“—but be careful what you wear because it’s a whitewash wedding,” said Miss Drapes coyly, or what she probably thought was coyly.

“And with that it only remains for me to—” Bent tried to continue, but the staff had realized what their ears had heard, and closed in on the couple, the women drawn to the soon-not-to-be-Miss Drapes by the legendarily high gravity of an engagement ring and the men intent on slapping Mr. Bent on the back and then doing the hitherto unthinkable, which involved picking him up and carrying him around the room on their shoulders.

Eventually, it was Moist who had to cup his hands and shout: “Look at the time, ladies and gentlemen! Our customers are waiting, ladies and gentlemen! Let us not stand in the way of making money! We mustn’t be a dam in the economic flow!”

…and he wondered what Hubert was doing now…

W
ITH HIS TONGUE
out in concentration, Igor removed a slim tube from the gurgling bowels of the Glooper.

A few bubbles zig-zagged to the top of the central hydro unit and burst on the surface with a gloop.

Hubert breathed a deep sigh of relief.

“Well done, Igor, only one more to…Igor?”

“Right here, thur,” said Igor, stepping out from behind him.

“It looks as though it’s working, Igor. Good old hyphenated silicon! But you’re sure it’ll still work as an economic modeler afterward?”

“Yeth, thur. I am confident in the new valve array. The thity will affect the Glooper, if you withh, but not the other way around.”

“Even so, it would be dreadful if it fell into the wrong hands, Igor. I wonder if I should present the Glooper to the government. What do you think?”

Igor gave this some thought. In his experience a prime definition of “the wrong hands” was “the government.”

“I think you ought to take the opportunity to get out a bit more, thur,” he said kindly.

“Yes, I suppose I have been overdoing it,” said Hubert. “Um…about Mr. Lipwig…”

“Yeth?”

Hubert looked like a man who had been wrestling with his conscience and got a knee in his eye.

“I want to put the gold back in the vault. That’ll stop all this trouble.”

“But it wath thtolen away yearth ago, thur,” Igor explained patiently. “It wathen’t your fault. It wath not even there when the Glooper wath built.”

“No, but they were blaming Mr. Lipwig, who’s always been very kind to us.”

“I think he got off on that one, thur.”

“But we could put it back,” Hubert insisted. “It would come back from wherever it was taken to, wouldn’t it?”

Igor scratched his head, causing a faint metallic noise. He had been following events with more care than Hubert employed, and as far as he could see, the missing gold had been disposed of by the Lavishes years ago. Mr. Lipwig had been in trouble, but it seemed to Igor that trouble hit Mr. Lipwig like a big wave hitting a flotilla of ducks. Afterward, there was no wave but there was still a lot of duck.

“It might,” he conceded.

“So that would be a good thing, yes?” Hubert insisted. “And he’s been very kind. We owe him that little favor.”

“I don’t think—”

“That is an order, Igor!”

Igor beamed. At last. All this politeness had been getting on his nerves. What an Igor expected was insane orders. That was what an Igor was born (and, to some extent, made) for. A shouted order to do something of dubious morality with an unpredictable outcome? Thweeet!

Of course, thunder and lightning would have been more appropriate. Instead there was nothing more than the bubbling of the Glooper and gentle glassy noises that always made Igor think he was in a wind-chime factory. But sometimes you just had to improvise.

He closed the little valve on the bottom of a funnel that drained into the Gold Reserve flask, and then filled it to the ten-tons marker, fiddled with the shiny valve array for a minute or two, and then stood back.

“When I turn thith wheel, marthter, the Glooper will depothit into the vault flathk an analogue of ten tonth of gold. Thith will cauth ten tonth of gold to gently appear in the vault, tho that reality ith in balance. Ath thoon ath thith ith done, the Glooper will then clothe the connection.”

“Very good, Igor.”

“Er, you wouldn’t like to thtout thomthing, would you,” Igor hinted.

“Like what?”

“Oh, I don’t know…perhapth ‘They said’…sorry, ‘thaid’…thorry…‘I wath mad but thith will show them!!’”

“That’s not really me.”

“No?” said Igor. “Perhapth a laugh, then?”

“Would that help?”

“Yeth, thur,” said Igor. “It will help me.”

“Oh, very well, if you think it will help,” said Hubert. He took a sip from the jug Igor had just used, and cleared his throat.

“Hah,” he said. “Er, hahahh hah HA HA HA
HA HA HA
…”

What a waste of a wonderful gift, thought Igor, and turned the wheel.

Gloop!

E
VEN FROM DOWN
here in the vaults, you could hear the buzz of activity in the banking hall.

Moist walked slowly under the weight of a crate of bank notes, to Adora Belle’s annoyance.

“Why can’t you put them in a safe?”

“Because they’re full of coins. Anyway, we’ll have to keep them in here for now, until we get sorted out.”

“It’s really just a victory thing, isn’t it? Your triumph over gold?”

“A bit, yes.”

“You got away with it again.”

“I wouldn’t exactly put it like that. Gladys has applied to be my secretary.”

“Here’s a tip: don’t let her sit on your lap.”

“I’m being serious here! She’s ferocious! She probably wants my job now! She believes everything she reads!”

“There’s your answer, then. Good grief, she’s the least of your problems!”

“Every problem is an opportunity,” said Moist primly.

“Well, if you upset Vetinari again you will have a wonderful opportunity to never have to buy another hat.”

“No, I think he likes a little opposition.”

“And are you any good at knowing how much?”

“No, that’s what I enjoy. You get a wonderful view from the point of no return.”

Moist opened the vault and put the crate on a shelf. It looked a bit lost and alone, but he could just make out the thudding of the press in the Mint as they worked hard at providing it with company.

Adora Belle leaned on the door frame, watching him carefully.

“I keep hearing that while I was away you did all kinds of risky things. Is that true?”

“I like to flirt with risk. It’s always been part of my life.”

“But you don’t do that kind of stuff while I’m around,” said Adora Belle. “So I’m enough of a thrill, am I?”