'I don't know what you are talking about, Mr Lipwig. In fact, I invited you here in your capacity as de facto deputy chairman of the Royal Bank. I want you to loan me - that is to say, the city - half a million dollars at two per cent. You are, of course, at liberty to refuse.'
So many thoughts scrambled for the emergency exit in Moist's brain that only one remained.
We're going to need some bigger notes...
Moist ran back to the bank, and straight to the little door under the stairs. He liked it down in the undercroft. It was cool and peaceful, apart from the gurgling of the Glooper and the screams. That last bit was wrong, wasn't it?
The pink poisons of involuntary insomnia slopped around in his head as he broke once more into a run.
The former Owlswick was sitting in a chair, apparently clean shaven except for a pointy little beard. Some kind of metal helmet had been attached to his head, and from it wires ran down into a glowing, clicking device that only an Igor would want to understand. The air smelled of thunderstorms.
'What are you doing to this poor man?' Moist yelled.
'Changing hith mind, thur,' said Igor, pulling a huge knife switch.
The helmet buzzed. Clamp blinked. 'It tickles,' he said. 'And for some reason it tastes of strawberries.'
'You're putting lightning right into his head!' said Moist. 'That's barbaric!'
'No, thur. Barbarianth don't have the capability,' said Igor smoothly. 'All I'm doing, thur, ith taking out all the bad memorieth and thtoring them' - here he pulled a cloth aside to reveal a big jar full of green liquid, in which was something rounded and studded with still more wires - 'in thith!'
'You're putting his brain into a... parsnip?'
'It'th a turnip,' said Igor.
'It's amazing what they can do, isn't it?' said a voice by Moist's elbow. He looked down.
Mr Clamp, now helmetless, beamed up at him. He looked shiny and alert, like a better class of shoe salesman. Igor had even managed a suit transplant.
'Are you all right?' said Moist.
'Fine!'
'What did... it feel like?'
'Hard to explain,' said Clamp. 'But it sounded like the smell of raspberries tastes.'
'Really? Oh. I suppose that's all right, then. And you really feel okay? In yourself?' said Moist, probing for the dreadful drawback. It had to be there. But Owls - Exorbit looked happy and full of confidence and vim, a man ready to take what life threw at him and knock it out of the court.
Igor was winding up his wiring with a very smug look on what, under all those scars, was probably his face.
Moist felt a pang of guilt. He was an Uberwald boy, he'd come down the Vilinus Pass like everyone else, trying to seek his fortune - correction, everybody else's fortune - and he had no right to pick up the fashionable lowland prejudice against the clan of Igors. After all, didn't they simply put into practice what so many priests professed to believe: that the body was just a rather heavy suit of cheap material clothing the invisible, everlasting soul, and therefore, swapping around bits and pieces like spare parts was surely no worse than running a shonky shop for used clothing? It was a constant source of hurt amazement to Igors that people couldn't see that this was both sensible and provident, at least up until the time when the axe slipped and people needed someone to lend a hand in a hurry. At a time like that, even an Igor looked good.
Mostly they looked... serviceable. Igors, with their obliviousness to pain, wonderful aids to healing and marvellous ability to carry out surgery on themselves with the help of a hand mirror, could presumably not look like a stumpy butler who'd been left in the rain for a month. Igorinas all looked stunning, but there was invariably something - a beautifully curved scar under one eye, a ring of decorative stitching around a wrist - that was for the Look. That was disconcerting, but an Igor always had his heart in the right place. Or a heart, at least.
'Well, er... well done, Igor,' Moist managed. 'Ready to make a start on the ol' dollar bill, then, Mr, er... Clamp?'
Mr Clamp's smile was full of sunbeams. 'Done it!' he announced. 'Did it this morning!'
'Surely not!'
'Indeed I have! Come and see!' The little man walked over to a table and lifted a sheet of paper.
The banknote gleamed, in purple and gold. It gave off money in rays. It seemed to float above the paper like a small magic carpet. It said wealth and mystery and tradition -
'We're going to make so much money!' said Moist. We'd better, he added to himself. We'll need to print at least 600,000 of these, unless I can come up with some bigger denominations.
But there it was, so beautiful you wanted to cry, and make lots like it, and put them in your wallet.