Making Money - Terry Pratchett [4]
“You Have An Appointment Now With Lord Vetinari,” said the golem.
“I’m sure I don’t.”
“There Are Two Guards Outside Who Are Sure You Do, Mr. Lipwig,” Gladys rumbled.
Oh, Moist thought. One of those appointments.
“And the time of this appointment would be right now, would it?”
“Yes, Mr. Lipwig.”
Moist grabbed his trousers, and some relic of his decent upbringing made him hesitate. He looked at the mountain of blue cotton in front of him.
“Do you mind?” he said.
Gladys turned away.
She’s half a ton of clay, Moist thought glumly, as he struggled into his clothes. And insanity is catching.
He finished dressing and hurried down the back stairs and out into the coach yard that had so recently threatened to be his penultimate resting place. The Quirm Shuttle was pulling out, but he leaped up beside the coachman, gave the man a nod, and rode in splendor down Widdershins Broadway until he could jump down outside the palace’s main entrance.
It would be nice, he reflected as he ran up the steps, if his lordship would entertain the idea that an appointment was something made by more than one person. But he was a tyrant, after all. They had to have some fun.
Drumknott, the Patrician’s secretary, was waiting by the door of the Oblong Office, and quickly ushered him into the seat in front of his lordship’s desk.
After nine seconds of industrious writing, Lord Vetinari looked up from his paperwork.
“Ah, Mr. Lipwig,” he said. “Not in your golden suit?”
“It’s being cleaned, sir.”
“I trust the day goes well with you? Up until now, that is?”
Moist looked around, sorting hastily through the Post Office’s recent little problems. Apart from Drumknott, who was standing by his master with an attitude of deferential alertness, they were alone.
“Look, I can explain,” he said.
Lord Vetinari lifted an eyebrow with the care of one who, having found a piece of caterpillar in his salad, raises the rest of the lettuce.
“Pray do,” he said, leaning back.
“We got a bit carried away,” said Moist. “We were a bit too creative in our thinking. We encouraged mongooses to breed in the posting boxes to keep down the snakes…”
Lord Vetinari said nothing.
“Er…which, admittedly, we introduced into the letter boxes to reduce the numbers of toads…”
Lord Vetinari repeated himself.
“Er…which, it’s true, staff put in the posting boxes to keep down the snails…”
Lord Vetinari remained unvocal.
“Er…These, I must in fairness point out, got into the boxes of their own accord, in order to eat the glue on the stamps,” said Moist, aware that he was beginning to burble.
“Well, at least you were saved the trouble of having to introduce them yourselves,” said Lord Vetinari cheerfully. “As you indicate, this may well have been a case where chilly logic should have been replaced by the common sense of, perhaps, the average chicken. But that is not the reason I asked you to come here today.”
“If it’s about the cabbage-flavored stamp glue—” Moist began.
Vetinari waved a hand. “An amusing incident,” he said, “and I believe nobody actually died.”
“Er…the Second-Issue 50p Stamp?” Moist ventured.
“The one they call ‘The Lovers’?” said Vetinari. “The League of Decency did complain to me, yes, but—”
“Our artist didn’t realize what he was sketching! He doesn’t know much about agriculture! He thought the young couple were sowing seeds!”
“Ahem,” said Vetinari. “But I understand that the offending affair can only be seen in any detail with quite a large magnifying glass, and so the offense, if such it be, is largely self-inflicted.” He gave one of his slightly frightening little smiles. “I understand the few copies in circulation among the stamp collectors are affixed to a plain brown envelope.” He looked at Moist’s blank face, and sighed.
“Tell me, Mr. Lipwig, would you like to make some real money?”
Moist gave this some thought and then said, very carefully: “What will happen to me if I say yes?”
“You will start a new career of challenge and adventure, Mr. Lipwig.”
Moist shifted uneasily. He didn’t