Interesting Times

commissioner for three years and the Street of Heavens is the main street,” said Disembowel-Meself-Honorably. “I’ve always wanted to meet a blood-sucking foreign ghost. Have a rice cake.”
    Rincewind’s gaze darted this way and that. But strangely enough the situation didn’t seem dangerous, or at least inevitably dangerous. It seemed that danger was negotiable.
    “Supposing I was to admit I was from behind the Wall?” he said, keeping his voice as low as possible.
    Dibhala nodded. One hand reached into his robe and, in a quick movement, revealed and then concealed the corner of something which Rincewind was not entirely surprised to see was entitled What I Did…
    “Some people say that beyond the Wall there’s nothing but deserts and burning wastes and evil ghosts and terrible monsters,” said Dibhala, “but I say, what about the merchandizing opportunities? A man with the right contacts…Know what I mean, shogun? He could go a long way in the land of blood-sucking ghosts.”
    Rincewind nodded. He didn’t like to point out that if you turned up in Ankh-Morpork with a handful of gold then about three hundred people would turn up with a handful of steel.
    “The way I see it, what with all this uncertainty about the Emperor and talk of rebels and that—Long Live His Excellency The Son Of Heaven, of course—there might just be a nitch for the open-minded trader, am I right?”
    “Nitch?”
    “Nitch. Like…we’ve got this stuff”—he leaned closer—“comes out of a caterpillar’s [unidentified pictogram]. ’S called… silk . It’s—”
    “Yes, I know. We get it from Klatch,” said Rincewind.
    “Or, well, there’s this bush, see, you dry the leaves, but then you put it in hot water and you drin—”
    “Tea, yes,” said Rincewind. “That comes from Howondaland.”
    D. M. H. Dibhala looked taken aback.
    “Well…we’ve got this powder, you put it in tubes—”
    “Fireworks? Got fireworks.”
    “How about this really fine china, it’s so—”
    “In Ankh-Morpork we’ve got dwarfs that can make china you can read a book through,” said Rincewind. “Even if it’s got tiny footnotes in it.”
    Dibhala frowned.
    “Sounds like you are very clever blood-sucking ghosts,” he said, backing away. “Maybe it’s true and you are dangerous.”
    “Us? Don’t worry about us,” said Rincewind. “We hardly ever kill foreigners in Ankh-Morpork. It makes it so hard to sell them things afterwards.”
    “What’ve we got that you want, though? Go on, have a rice cake. On the pagoda. Wanna try some pork balls? Onna chopstick?”
    Rincewind selected a cake. He didn’t like to ask about the other stuff.
    “You’ve got gold,” he said.
    “Oh, gold . It’s too soft to do much with,” said Dibhala. “It’s all right for pipes and putting on roofs, though.”
    “Oh…I daresay people in Ankh-Morpork could find a use for some,” said Rincewind. His gaze returned to the coins in Dibhala’s tray.
    A land where gold was as cheap as lead…
    “What’s that?” he said, pointing to a crumpled rectangle half covered with coins.
    D. M. H. Dibhala looked down. “It’s this thing we have here,” he said, speaking slowly. “Of course, it’s probably all new to you. It’s called mon-ey. It’s a way of carrying around your—”
    “I meant the bit of paper,” said Rincewind.
    “So did I,” said Dibhala. “That’s a ten- rhinu note.”
    “What does that mean?” said Rincewind.
    “Means what it says,” said Dibhala. “Means it’s worth ten of these.” He held up a gold coin about the size of a rice cake.
    “Why’d you want to buy a piece of paper?” said Rincewind.
    “You don’t buy it, it’s for buying things with ,” said Dibhala.
    Rincewind looked blank.
    “You go to a mark-et stall,” said Dibhala, getting back into the slow-voice-for-the-hard-of-thinking, “and you say, ‘Good morn-ing, but-cher, how much for those dog noses?’ and he says, ‘Three rhinu , shogun,’ and you say, ‘I’ve only got a pony, okay?’ (look, there’s an etch-ing of a pony on it, see, that’s what you get on ten- rhinu notes) and he gives you the dog noses and seven coins in what we call ‘change.’ Now, if you had a monkey, that’s fifty rhinu , he’d say ‘Got anything smal-ler?’ and—”
    “But it’s only a bit of paper!” Rincewind wailed.
    “It may be a bit of paper to you but it’s ten rice cakes to me,” said Dibhala. “What do you foreign