Making Money

yours.”
    “Well, she’s a large girl, that Pucci Lavish.”
    “And nasty enemies to have, that family,” Colon opined. “What’s the odds?”
    “Odds, Sarge?” said Nobby innocently.
    “You’re runnin’ a book, Nobby. You always run a book.”
    “Can’t get any takers, Sarge. For’gone conclusion,” said Nobby.
    “Ah, right. Sensible. Lipwig goin’ to be found lyin’ in chalk by Sunday?”
    “No, Sarge. Everyone thinks he’ll win.”

    MOIST WOKE UP in the big, soft bed and strangled a scream.
    Pucci! Aaagh! And in a state of what the delicately inclined called “dishabille.” He’d always wondered what dishabille looked like, but he’d never expected to see so much of it in one go. Even now, some of his memory cells were still trying to die.
    But he wouldn’t be Moist von Lipwig if a certain amount of insouciance didn’t rise to heal the wounds. He’d got away, after all. Oh, yes. It wasn’t as though it was the first window he’d jumped through. And the sound of Pucci’s scream of rage was almost as loud as the crack the man’s iconograph made as it hit the cobbles. The ol’ honey-trap game. Hah. But it really was time he did something illegal, just to get his mind back to crooked. He wouldn’t have got into the first cab a year ago, that was for sure. Mind you, it would be a strange jury that believed he could be attracted to Pucci Lavish; he couldn’t see that standing up in court.
    He got up, dressed, and listened hopefully for signs of life from the kitchen. In their absence, he made himself some black coffee.
    Armed with this, he made his way into the office, where Mr. Fusspot dozed in his in tray and the official top hat sat, accusingly black.
    Ah, yes, he was going to do something about that, wasn’t he?
    He reached into his pocket and pulled out the little pot of glue, which was one of the convenient ones with a brush in the lid, and after some careful spreading began to pour the glittering flakes as smoothly as he could.
    He was still engrossed in this exercise when Gladys loomed in his vision like an eclipse of the sun, holding what turned out to be a bacon-and-egg sandwich two feet long and one-eighth-of-an-inch thick. She’d also picked up his copy of the Times.
    He groaned.
    He’d made the front page. He usually did. It was his athletic mouth. It ran away with him whenever he saw a notebook.
    Er…he’d made page two, as well. Oh, and the lead editorial. Bugger, even the political cartoon, too, the one that was never much of a laugh.

First Urchin: “Why ain’t Ankh-Morpork like a desert island?”

Second Urchin: “’Cos when yer on a desert island the sharks can’t bite yer!”

    It was side-splitting.
    His bleary eyes strayed back to the editorial. They, on the other hand, could be quite funny, since they were based on the assumption that the world would be a much better place if it was run by journalists. They were—
    What? What was this? “Time to consider the unthinkable…a wind of change blowing through the vaults at last…undoubted success of the new Post Office…stamps already a de facto currency…fresh ideas needed…youth at the helm…” Youth at the helm? This from William de Worde, who was almost certainly the same age as Moist but wrote editorials that suggested his bum was stuffed with tweed.
    It was sometimes hard to tell in all the ponderousness what de Worde actually thought about anything, but it appeared through the rolling fog of polysyllables that the Times believed Moist von Lipwig to be, on the whole and all things considered, taking the long view and one thing with another, probably the right man in the right job.
    He was aware of Gladys behind him when red light glinted off the brasswork on the desk.
    “You Are Very Tense, Mr. Lipwig,” she said.
    “Yeah, right,” said Moist, reading the editorial again. Ye gods, the man really did write as though he was chipping the letters in stone.
    “There Was An Interesting Article About Back Rubs In The Ladies’ Own Magazine,” Gladys went on. Later on, Moist felt that perhaps he should have heeded the hopeful tone in her voice. But he was thinking: Not just carved, but with big serifs, too.
    “They Are Very Good At Relieving Tension Caused By The Hurly-Burly Of Modern Life,” Gladys intoned.
    “Well, we certainly don’t want any of that,” said Moist, and everything went black.
    The strange thing was, he thought, when Peggy and Aimsbury had brought him round and clicked