Making Money - Terry Pratchett [100]
“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 boardinghouse.”
“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 pain without gain 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, absentmindedly taking a rain hat off the peg.
“I am 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 around. Suddenly, he was on edge. “Would you mind if I wind down on the lisp a little, sir?”
“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 nice 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?”
“Yeth, 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.
“Hahah! Ahahahah!!! AHAHAHAHA!!!!…can you get me a glass of water, please?…HAHAHAHA!!!