Making Money

of the city too?”
    “Indeed, thur. There ith an antiquarian booktheller in Lobbin Clout.” Igor put the metal device aside, pulled a battered leather bag from under the table, and, after a moment’s thought, put a hammer in it.
    Even in the world of the newly fledged Mr. Clamp, it was still so late at night that it was too early in the morning.
    “Er…I’m sure it can wait until daylight,” he volunteered.
    “Oh, I alwayth thhop at night, thur,” said Igor, “when I’m after…bargainth.”

    MOIST WOKE FULLY dressed and far too early, with Mr. Fusspot standing on his chest and squeaking his rubber bone very loudly. As a result, Moist was being dribbled on in no small way.
    Behind Mr. Fusspot was Gladys. Behind her were two men in black suits.
    “His lordship has agreed to see you, Mr. Lipwig,” said one of them quite cheerfully.
    Moist tried to wipe the slobber off his lapel, and only succeeded in shining the suit.
    “Do I want to see him?”
    One of the men smiled.
    “Ooooh yes!”

    “A HANGING ALWAYS MAKES me hungry,” said Lord Vetinari, working carefully on a hard-boiled egg. “Don’t you find this so?”
    “Um…I’ve only been hanged once,” said Moist. “I didn’t feel like eating much.”
    “I think it is the chilly early-morning air,” said Vetinari, apparently not hearing this. “It puts an edge on the appetite.”
    He looked directly at Moist for the first time, and appeared concerned.
    “Oh dear, you’re not eating, Mr. Lipwig? You must eat. You look a little peaky. I trust your job is not getting on top of you?”
    Somewhere en route to the palace, Moist thought, he must have stepped into another world. It had to be something like that. It was the only explanation.
    “Er…who was hanged?” he said.
    “Owlswick Jenkins, the forger,” said Vetinari, devoting himself again to the surgical removal of the white from the yolk. “Drumknott, perhaps Mr. Lipwig would like some fruit? Or some of that bowel-lacerating grain-and-nut concoction you favor so much?”
    “Indeed, sir,” said the secretary.
    Vetinari leaned forward as if inviting Moist to join a conspiracy and added, “I believe the cook does kippers for the guards. Very fortifying. You really do look quite pale. Don’t you think he looks pale, Drumknott?”
    “Verging on the wan, sir.”
    It was like having acid dropped slowly into your ear. Moist thought frantically, but the best he could come up with was: “Was it a well-attended hanging?”
    “Not very. I don’t think it was properly advertised,” said Vetinari, “and, of course, his crime was not associated with buckets of gore. That always makes the crowd cheer as you know. But Owlswick Jenkins was there, oh yes. He never cut a throat but he bled the city, drop by drop.”
    Vetinari had removed and eaten the whole of the white of the egg, leaving the yolk glowing and unsullied.
    What would I have done if I was Vetinari and found my prison was about to become a laughingstock? There’s nothing like laughter for undermining authority, Moist thought. More important, what would he have done if he was him, which of course he is…
    You’d hang someone else, that’s what you’d do. You’d find some wretch of the right general shape who was waiting in the slammer for the hemp fandango and cut him a deal. Oh, he’d hang right enough, but under the name of Owlswick Jenkins. News would get out that the stand-in had been pardoned but died accidentally or something, and his dear ol’ mum or his wife and kids would get an anonymous bag of wonga and escape a little bit of shame.
    And then the crowd would get their hanging. Now, with any luck, Bellyster had a job washing spittoons, justice or something vaguely similar would be seen to be done, and the message would be sent out that crimes against the city should be contemplated exclusively by those with cast-iron necks, and even then, only maybe.
    Moist realized he was touching his own neck. Sometimes he woke up in the night, even now, just a moment after the void opened under his feet—
    Vetinari was looking at him. It wasn’t exactly a smile on his face, but Moist got the nape-twitching feeling that, when he tried to think like Vetinari, his lordship slid in on those thoughts like some big black spider on a bunch of bananas and scuttled around where he shouldn’t.
    And the certainty hit him. Owlswick wouldn’t have died anyway. Not with a talent like that. He would have dropped through the trapdoor to a