Going Postal

and blessed its little cotton socks. He was very grateful for its assistance during this difficult period and looked forward to future cooperation, although, of course, the Post Office, in the real modern world, would never be able to compete on anything other than a very local level. Mind you, someone has to deliver the bills, ho ho…
    It was masterly…the bastard .
    “Er…are you okay? Could you stop shouting?” said Miss Dearheart.
    “What?” The mists cleared.
    Everyone in the hall was looking at him, their mouths open, their eyes wide. Watery ink dripped from Post Office pens, stamps began to dry on tongues.
    “You were shouting,” said Miss Dearheart. “Swearing, in fact.”
    Miss Maccalariat pushed her way through the throng, with an expression of determination.
    “Mr. Lipwig, I hope never to hear such language in this building again!” she said.
    “He was using it about the chairman of the Grand Trunk Company,” said Miss Dearheart, in what was, for her, a conciliatory tone of voice.
    “Oh.” Miss Maccalariat hesitated, and then remembered herself. “Er…perhaps a teensy bit quieter, then?”
    “Certainly, Miss Maccalariat,” said Moist obediently.
    “And perhaps not the K-word?”
    “No, Miss Maccalariat.”
    “And also not the L-word, the T-word, both of the S-words, the V-word, and the Y-word.”
    “Just as you say, Miss Maccalariat.”
    “‘Murdering conniving bastard of a weasel’ was acceptable, however.”
    “I shall remember that, Miss Maccalariat.”
    “Very good, Postmaster.”
    Miss Maccalariat turned on her heel and went back to haranguing someone for not using blotting paper.
    Moist handed the paper to Miss Dearheart.
    “He’s going to walk away with it,” he said. “He’s just throwing words around. The Trunk’s too big to fail. Too many investors. He’ll get more money, keep the system going just this side of disaster, then let it collapse. Buy it up then via another company, maybe, at a knockdown price.”
    “I’d suspect him of anything,” said Miss Dearheart. “But you sound very certain.”
    “That’s what I’d do,” said Moist, “…er…if I was that kind of person. It’s the oldest trick in the book. You get the punt—you get others so deeply involved that they don’t dare fold. It’s the dream, you see? They think if they stay in it’ll all work out. They daren’t think it’s all a dream. You use big words to tell them it’s going to be jam tomorrow and they hope . But they’ll never win. Part of them knows that, but the rest of them never listens to it. The house always wins.”
    “Why do people like Gilt get away with it?”
    “I just told you. It’s because people hope. They’ll believe that someone will sell them a real diamond for a dollar. Sorry.”
    “Do you know how I came to work for the Trust?” said Miss Dearheart.
    Because clay people are easier to deal with? Moist thought. They don’t cough when you talk to them? “No,” he said.
    “I used to work in a bank in Sto Lat. The Cabbage Growers’ Cooperative—”
    “Oh, the one on the town square? With the carved cabbage over the door?” said Moist before he could stop himself.
    “You know it?” she said.
    “Well, yes. I went past it, once…” Oh no , he thought, as his mind ran ahead of the conversation, oh, please, no…
    “It wasn’t a bad job,” said Miss Dearheart. “In our office, we had to inspect drafts and checks. Looking for forgeries, you know? And one day, I let four through. Four fakes! It cost the bank two thousand dollars. They were cash drafts, and the signatures were perfect. I got sacked for that. They said they had to do something, otherwise the customers would lose confidence. It’s not fun, having people think you might be a crook. And that’s what happens to people like us. People like Gilt always get away with it. Are you all right?”
    “Hmm?” said Moist.
    “You look a bit…off-color.”
    That had been a good day , Moist thought. At least, up until now it had been a good day . He’d been quite pleased with it at the time. You weren’t supposed ever to meet the people afterwards. Gods damn Mr. Pump and his actuarial concept of murder!
    He sighed. Oh well, it had come to this. He’d known it would. Him and Gilt, arm-wrestling to see who was the biggest bastard.
    “This is the country edition of the Times ,” he said. “They don’t go to press with the city edition for another ninety minutes, in case of late-breaking