Going Postal

else.”
    “Oh, I do, sir! For example, on the very first run of the penny stamps they used a different type of—”
    “Good!” said Moist hurriedly. “Well done! Can I keep this first sheet? As a souvenir?”
    “Of course, sir,” said Stanley. “Head of stamps, sir? Wow! Er…is there a hat?”
    “If you like,” said Moist generously, folding up the sheet of stamps and putting them in his inside pocket. So much more convenient than dollars. Wow, indeed. “Or perhaps a shirt?” he added. “You know…‘Ask Me About Stamps’?”
    “Good idea, sir! Can I go and tell Mr. Groat, sir? He’d be so proud of me!”
    “Off you go, Stanley,” said Moist. “But come back in ten minutes, will you? I’ll have a letter for you to deliver—personally.”
    Stanley ran off.
    Moist opened the wooden box, which fanned out its trays obediently, and flexed his fingers.
    Hmm. It seemed that anyone who was, well, anyone in the city had their paper printed by Teemer and Spools. Moist thumbed through his recently acquired paper samples, and spotted:

    The Grand Trunk Company
“ As Fast as Light ”
From the Office of the Chairman

    It was tempting. Very tempting. They were rich, very rich. Even with the current trouble, they were still very big. And Moist had never met a head waiter who hated money.
    He found a copy of yesterday’s Times . There’d been a picture…yes, here. There was a picture of Reacher Guilt, Chairman of the Grand Trunk, at some function. He looked like a better class of pirate, a buccaneer maybe, but one who took the time to polish his plank.
    That flowing black hair, that beard, that eyepatch, and, oh gods, that cockatoo…that was a Look, wasn’t it?
    Moist hadn’t paid much attention to the Grand Trunk Company. It was too big, and from what he’d heard it practically employed its own army. Things could be tough in the mountains, where you were often a long way from anything that resembled a watchman. It wasn’t a good idea to steal things from people who did their own law enforcement. They tended to be very definite.
    But what he was intending wouldn’t be stealing. It might not even be breaking the law. Fooling a maître d’ was practically a public service.
    He looked at the picture again. Now, how would a man like that sign his name?
    Hmm…flowing yet small, that would be the handwriting of Reacher Gilt. He was so florid, so sociable, so huge a personality that one who was good at this sort of thing might wonder if another shard of glass was trying to sparkle like a diamond. And the essence of forgery is to make, by misdirection and careful timing, the glass look so much more like a diamond than a diamond does.
    Well, it was worth a try. It was not as though he was going to swindle anyone, as such.
    Hmm. Small yet flowing, yes…but someone who’d never seen the man’s writing would expect it to be extravagantly big, curly, just like him…
    Moist poised the pen over the headed paper, and then wrote:
Maître d’ ,
Le Foie Heureux
I would be most grateful if you could find a table for my good friend Mr. Lipwig and his lady at eight o’clock tonight .
Reacher Gilt
    Most grateful , that was good. The Reacher Gilt persona probably tipped like a drunken sailor.
    He folded the letter, and was addressing the envelope when Stanley and Groat came in.
    “You’ve got a letter, Mr. Lipwig,” said Stanley proudly.
    “Yes, here it is,” said Moist.
    “No, I mean here’s one for you,” said the boy. They exchanged envelopes. Moist glanced cursorily at the envelope and opened it with a thumb.
    “I’ve got bad news, sir,” said Groat, as Stanley left.
    “Hmm?” said Moist, looking at the letter.

    Postmaster,
    The Pseudopolis clacks line will break down at 9am tomorrow.
    The Smoking Gnu

    “Yessir. I went round to the coach office,” Groat went on, oblivious to this, “and told them what you said, and they said you stick to your business, thank you very much, and they’ll stick to theirs.”
    “Hmm,” said Moist, still staring at the letter. Well, well. “Have you heard of someone called ‘The Smoking Gnu,’ Mr. Groat?”
    “What’s a gernue, sir?”
    “A bit like a dangerous cow, I think,” said Moist. “Er…what were you saying about the coach people?”
    “They give me lip , sir, that’s what they give me,” said Groat. “I told ’em, I told ’em, I was the Assistant Postmaster and they said, ‘So what?’ sir. Then I said I’d tell you, sir, and they