Going Postal - Terry Pratchett [31]
Reacher Gilt chuckled. “Sorry, my lord? Did I understand you correctly? You really intend to continue with this folly, in the face of everything? The Post Office? When we all know that it was a lumbering, smug, overstaffed, overweight monster of a place? It barely earned its keep! It was the very essence and exemplar of public enterprise!”
“It never made much of a profit, it is true, but in the business areas of this city there were seven deliveries a day,” said Vetinari, cold as the depths of the sea.
“Hah! Not at the end!” said Mr. Horsefry. “It was bloody useless!”
“Indeed. A classic example of a corroded government organization dragging on the public purse,” Gilt added.
“Too true!” said Mr. Horsefry. “They used to say that if you wanted to get rid of a dead body you should take it to the Post Office and it’d never be seen again!”
“And was it?” said Lord Vetinari, raising an eyebrow.
“Was what?”
“Was it seen again?”
There was a sudden hunted look in Mr. Horsefry’s eyes. “What? How would I know?”
“Oh, I see,” said Lord Vetinari. “It was a joke. Ah, well.” He shuffled the papers. “Unfortunately, the Post Office came to be seen not as a system for moving the mail efficiently, to the benefit and profit of all, but as a moneybox. And so it collapsed, losing both mail and money. A lesson for us all, perhaps. Anyway, I have high hopes of Mr. Lipwig, a young man full of fresh ideas. A good head for heights, too, although I imagine he will not be climbing any towers.”
“I do hope this resurrection will not prove to be a drain on our taxes,” said Mr. Slant.
“I assure you, Mr. Slant, that apart from the modest sum necessary to, as it were, prime the pump, the postal service will be self-supporting as, indeed, it used to be. We cannot have a drag on the public purse, can we? And now, gentlemen, I am conscious that I am keeping you from your very important business. I do trust that the Trunk will be back in commission very shortly.”
As they stood up, Reacher Gilt leaned across the table and said: “May I congratulate you, my lord?”
“I am delighted that you feel inclined to congratulate me on anything, Mr. Gilt,” said Vetinari. “To what do we owe this unique occurrence?”
“This, my lord,” said Gilt, gesturing to the little side table on which had been set the rough-hewn piece of stone. “Is this not an original Hnaflbaflsniflwhifltafl slab? Llamedos bluestone, isn’t it? And the pieces look like basalt, which is the very devil to carve. A valuable antique, I think.”
“It was a present to me from the Low King of the Dwarfs,” said Vetinari. “It is, indeed, very old.”
“And you have a game in progress, I see. You’re playing the dwarf side, yes?”
“Yes. I play by clacks against an old friend in Uberwald,” said Vetinari. “Happily for me, your breakdown yesterday has given me an extra day to think of my next move.”
Their eyes met. Reacher Gilt laughed hugely. Vetinari smiled. The other men, who badly needed to laugh, laughed, too. See, we’re all friends, we’re like colleagues really, nothing bad is going to happen.
The laughter died away, a little uneasily. Gilt and Vetinari maintained smiles, maintained eye contact.
“We should play a game,” said Gilt. “I have a rather nice board myself. I play the troll side, for preference.”
“Ruthless, initially outnumbered, inevitably defeated in the hands of the careless player?” said Vetinari.
“Indeed. Just as the dwarfs rely on guile, feint, and swift changes of position. A man can learn all of an opponent’s weaknesses on that board,” said Gilt.
“Really?” said Vetinari, raising his eyebrows. “Should he not be trying to learn his own?”
“Oh, that’s just Thud! That’s easy!” yapped a voice.
Both men turned to look at Horsefry, who had been made perky by sheer relief.