Making Money - Terry Pratchett [106]
“I welded one thousand and ninety-seven joints,” he said, “and blew the law of diminishing returns.”
“I shouldn’t think anyone’s ever done that before,” said Adora Belle.
Hubert brightened up. This was easy!
“We are not doing anything wrong, you know!” he said.
“I’m sure you aren’t,” said Adora Belle, trying to pull her hand away.
“It can keep track of every dollar in the city, you know. The possibilities are endless! But, but, but, um, of course we’re not upsetting things in any way!”
“I’m very glad to hear it, Hubert,” said Adora Belle, tugging harder.
“Of course we are having teething troubles! But everything is being done with immense care! Nothing has been lost because we’ve left a valve open or anything like that!”
“How intriguing!” said Adora Belle, bracing her left hand on Hubert’s shoulder and wrenching the other one free.
“We have to go, Hubert,” said Moist. “Keep up the good work, though. I’m very proud of you.”
“You are?” said Hubert. “Cosmo said I was insane, and wanted Auntie to sell the Glooper for scrap!”
“Typical hidebound, old-fashioned thinking,” said Moist. “This is the Century of the Anchovy. The future belongs to men like you, who can tell us how everything works.”
“It does?” said Hubert.
“You mark my words,” said Moist, ushering Adora Belle firmly toward the distant exit.
When they were gone, Hubert sniffed the palm of his hand and shivered.
“They were nice people, weren’t they,” he said.
“Yeth, marthter.”
Hubert looked up at the glittering, trickling pipes of the Glooper, faithfully mirroring in its ebbing and flowing the tides of money around the city.
Just one blow could rattle the world. It was a terrible responsibility.
Igor joined him. They stood in a silence broken only by the sloshing of commerce.
“What shall I do, Igor?” said Hubert.
“In the Old Country we have a thaying,” Igor volunteered.
“A what?”
“A thaying. We thay, ‘If you don’t want the monthter you don’t pull the lever.’”
“You don’t think I’ve gone mad, do you, Igor?”
“Many great men have been conthidered mad, Mr. Hubert. Even Dr. Hanth Forvord wath called mad. But I put it to you: could a madman have created a revolutionary living-brain extractor?”
“IS HUBERT QUITE… normal?” said Adora Belle, as they climbed the marble staircase toward dinner.
“By the standards of obsessive men who don’t get out into the sunlight?” said Moist. “Pretty normal, I’d say.”
“But he acted as if he’d never seen a woman before!”
“He’s just not used to things that don’t come with a manual,” said Moist.
“Hah,” said Adora Belle, “why is it only men that get like that?”
Earns a tiny wage working for golems, thought Moist. Puts up with graffiti and smashed windows because of golems. Camps out in wilderness, argues with powerful men. All for golems. But he didn’t say anything, because he’d read the manual.
They had reached the managerial floor. Adora Belle sniffed. “Smell that? Isn’t that just wonderful?” she said. “Wouldn’t it turn a rabbit into a carnivore?”
“Sheep’s head,” said Moist gloomily. “Only to make the broth,” said Adora Belle. “All the soft wobbly bits get taken out first. Don’t worry. You’ve just been put off by the old joke, that’s all.”
“What old joke?”
“Oh, come on! A boy goes into a butcher’s shop and says, ‘Mum says can we please have a sheep’s head and you’re to leave the eyes in ’cos it’s got to see us through the week.’ You don’t get it? It’s using see in the sense of to last and also in the sense of, well, to see…”
“I just think it’s a bit unfair to the sheep, that’s all.”
“Interesting,” said Adora Belle. “You eat nice, anonymous lumps of animals but think it’s unfair to eat the other bits? You think the head goes off thinking, ‘At least he didn’t eat me?’ Strictly speaking, the more we eat of an animal the happier its species should be, since we wouldn’t need to kill so many of them.”
Moist pushed open the double doors, and the air was full of wrongness again.
There was no Mr. Fusspot. Normally he’d be waiting in his in tray, ready to greet Moist with a big, slobbery welcome. But the