Making Money (Discworld 36)

A pair of funny-looking people came to the bank today, asking for the boy Bent. I bade the staff send them away. He is doing exceedingly well. One wonders what he must have suffered.

Quite a lot of the journal seemed to be in some sort of code, but the nature of the secret symbols suggested that Sir Joshua painstakingly recorded every amorous affair. You had to admire his directness, at least. He'd worked out what he wanted to get from life, and had set out to get as much of it as he could. Moist had to take his hat off to the man.

And what had he wanted? He'd never sat down to think about it. But mostly, he wanted tomorrow to be different from today.

He looked at his watch. Four-fifteen, and no one about but the guards. There were watchmen on the main doors. He was indeed not under arrest, but this was one of those civilized little arrangements: he was not under arrest provided that he didn't try to act like a man who was not under arrest.

Ah, he thought, as he pulled on his trousers, there was another small blessing: he had been there when Mr Fusspot proposed to the werewolf  -

-  which was, by then, balancing on one of the huge ornamental urns that grew like toadstools in the bank's corridors. It was rocking. So was Corporal Nobbs, who was laughing himself sick at  -

-  Mr Fusspot, who was bouncing up and down with wonderfully optimistic enthusiasm. But he was holding in his mouth his new toy, which appeared to have been mysteriously wound up, and beneficent fate had decreed that at the top of each jump its unbalancing action would cause the little dog to do one slow cartwheel in the air.

And Moist thought: so the werewolf is female and has a Watch badge on her collar, and I've seen that hair colour before. Ha!

But his gaze had gone straight back to Mr Fusspot, who was jumping and spinning with a look of total bliss on his little face  -

-  and then Captain Carrot had plucked him out of the air, the werewolf fled, and the show was over. But Moist would always have the memory. Next time he walked past Sergeant Angua he'd growl under his breath, although that would probably constitute assault.

Now, fully dressed, he went for a walk along endless corridors.

The Watch had put a lot of new guards in the bank for the night. Captain Carrot was clever, you had to give him that. They were trolls. Trolls were very hard to talk round to your point of view.

He could sense them watching him everywhere he went. There wasn't one at the door into the undercroft, but Moist's heart sank when he neared the pool of brilliant light around the Glooper and saw one standing by the door to freedom.

Owlswick was lying on a mattress and snoring, with his paintbrush in his hand. Moist envied him.

Hubert and Igor were working on the tangle of glassware which, Moist could swear, looked bigger every time he came down here.

'What's wrong?'

'Wrong? Nothing. Nothing's wrong!' said Hubert. 'It's all fine! Is something wrong? Why do you think something is wrong? What would make you think there's something wrong?'

Moist yawned. 'Any coffee? Tea?' he suggested.

'For you, Mr Lipwig,' said Igor, 'I will make Thplot.'

'Splot? Real Splot?'

'Indeed, thur,' said Igor smugly.

'You can't buy it here, you know.'

'I am aware of that, thur. It hath now been outlawed in motht of the old country, too,' said Igor, rummaging in a sack.

'Outlawed? It's been outlawed? But it's just a herbal drink! My granny used to make it!'

'Indeed, it wath very traditional,' Igor agreed. 'It put hairth on your chetht.'

'Yes, she used to complain about that.'

'This is an alcoholic beverage?' said Hubert nervously.

'Absolutely not,' said Moist. 'My granny never touched alcohol.' He thought for a moment and then added: 'Except maybe aftershave. Splot's made from tree bark.'

'Oh? Well, that sounds nice,' said Hubert.

Igor retired to his jungle of equipment, and there was the clinking of glassware. Moist sat down at the cluttered bench.