Making Money

despite what had been said, have the respect of Ankh-Morpork’s legal profession. He commanded its fear. Death had not diminished his encyclopedic memory, his guile, his talent for corkscrew reasoning, and the vitriol of his stare. Do not cross me this day, it advised the lawyers. Do not cross me, for if you do I will have the flesh from your very bones and the marrow therein. You know those leather-bound tomes you have on the wall behind your desk to impress your clients? I have read them all, and I wrote half of them. Do not try me. I am not in a good mood.
    One by one, they sat down.
    “If I may continue?” said Vetinari. “I understand that Mrs. Lavish subsequently interviewed Mr. Lipwig and considered that he would be a superb chairman in the very best traditions of the Lavish family and the ideal guardian for the dog Mr. Fusspot, who is, by the custom of the bank, its chairman.”
    Cosmo rose slowly to his feet and stepped out into the center of the floor. “l object most strongly to the suggestion that this scoundrel is in the best traditions of my—” he began. Mr. Slant was on his feet as though propelled by a spring. Quick as he was, Moist was faster.
    “I object!” he said.
    “How do you dare object,” Cosmo spat, “when you have admitted to being an arrogant scofflaw?”
    “I object to Lord Vetinari’s allegation that I have had anything to do with the fine traditions of the Lavish family,” said Moist, staring into eyes that now seemed to be weeping green tears. “For example, I have never been a pirate or traded in slaves—”
    There was a great rising of lawyers.
    Mr. Slant glared. There was a great seating.
    “They admit it,” said Moist. “It’s in the bank’s own official history!”
    “That is correct, Mr. Slant,” said Vetinari. “I have read it. Volenti non fit injuria clearly applies.”
    The whirring started again. Mr. Fusspot was coming back the other way. Moist forced himself not to look.
    “Oh, this is low indeed!” snarled Cosmo. “Whose history could withstand this type of malice!”
    Moist raised a hand. “Oooh, oooh, I know this one!” he said. “Mine can. The worst I ever did was rob people who thought they were robbing me, but I never used violence and I gave it all back. Okay, I robbed a couple of banks, well, defrauded, really, but only because they made it so easy—”
    “Gave it back?” said Slant, looking for some kind of response from Vetinari. But the Patrician was staring over the heads of the crowd, who were almost all engrossed in the transit of Mr. Fusspot, and merely raised a finger in either acknowledgment or dismissal.
    “Yes, you may recall that I saw the error of my ways last year when the gods—” Moist began.
    “‘Robbed a couple of banks’?” said Cosmo. “Vetinari, are we to believe that you knowingly put the most important bank in the city into the charge of a known bank robber?”
    The mass ranks of the Lavishes arose, united in the defense of the money. Vetinari still stared at the ceiling.
    Moist looked up. A disc, something white, skimmed through the air near the ceiling, descended as it circled, and hit Cosmo between the eyes. A second one swooped on over the head of Moist and landed in the bosoms of the Lavishes.
    “Should he have left it in the hands of unknown bank robbers?” a voice shouted, as collateral custard landed on every smart black suit. “Here we are again!”
    A second wave of pies was already in the air, circling the room in trajectories that dropped them into the struggling Lavishes. And then a figure fought its way out of the crowd, to the groans and screams of those who’d temporarily been in its way; this was because those who managed to escape having their feet trodden on by the big shoes jumped back in time to be scythed down by the ladder the newcomer was carrying. Then it’d innocently turned to see what mayhem it had caused, and the swinging ladder felled anyone too slow to get away. There was a method to it, though; as Moist watched, the clown stepped away from the ladder, leaving four people trapped among the rungs in such a way that any attempt to get out would cause huge pain to the other three and, in the case of one of the watchmen, a serious impairment of marriage prospects.
    Red-nosed and raggedy-hatted, it bounced into the arena in great, leaping strides, his enormous boots flapping on the floor with every familiar step.
    “Mr. Bent?” said Moist. “Is that you?”
    “My jolly