Making Money

what so many priests professed to believe: that the body was just a rather heavy cheap suit clothing the invisible, everlasting soul, and therefore, swapping around bits and pieces like spare parts was surely no worse than running a shonky shop for used clothing? It was a constant source of hurt amazement to Igors that people couldn’t see that this was both sensible and provident, at least up until the time when the axe slipped and you needed someone to lend a hand in a hurry. At a time like that, even an Igor looked good.
    Mostly they looked…serviceable. Igors, with their obliviousness to pain, wonderful healing powers, and marvelous ability to carry out surgery on themselves with the aid of a hand mirror, could presumably not look like a stumpy butler who’d been left in the rain for a month. Igorinas always looked stunning, but there was always something—a beautifully curved scar under one eye, a ring of decorative stitching around a wrist—that was for the Look. That was always disconcerting, but an Igor always had his heart in the right place. Or a heart, at least.
    “Well, er…well done, Igor,” Moist managed. “Ready to make a start on the ol’ dollar bill, then, Mr., er, Clamp?”
    Mr. Clamp’s smile was full of sunbeams. “Done it!” he announced. “Did it this morning!”
    “Surely not!”
    “Indeed I have! Come and see!” The little man walked over to a table and lifted a sheet of paper.
    The bank note gleamed, in purple and gold. It gave off money in rays. It seemed to float above the paper like a small magic carpet. It said wealth and mystery and tradition—
    “We’re going to make so much money!” said Moist. We’d better, he added to himself. We’ll need to print at least six hundred thousand of these, unless I can come up with some bigger denominations.
    But there it was, so beautiful you wanted to cry, and make lots more like it, and put them in your wallet.
    “How did you do it so quickly?”
    “Well, a lot of it is just geometry,” said Mr. Clamp. “Mr. Igor here was kind enough to make me a little device which was a great help there. It’s not finished, of course, and I haven’t even started on the other side yet. I think I’ll make a start on that now, in fact, while I’m still fresh.”
    “You think you can do better?” said Moist, awed in the presence of genius.
    “I feel so…full of energy!” said Clamp.
    “That would be the elecktrical fluid, I expect,” said Moist.
    “No, I mean I can see so clearly what needs to be done! Before, it was all like some horrible weight I had to lift, but now everything is clear and light!”
    “Well, I’m glad to hear it,” said Moist, not entirely certain that he was. “Do excuse me, I have a bank to run.”
    He hurried through the arches and entered the main hall via the unassuming door in time to very nearly collide with Bent.
    “Ah, Mr. Lipwig, I wondered where you were—”
    “Is this going to be important, Mr. Bent?”
    The chief cashier looked offended, as if he’d ever trouble Moist about anything that was not important.
    “There are lots of men outside the Mint,” he said. “With trolls and carts. They say you want them to install a—” Bent shuddered “—a printing engine!”
    “That’s right,” said Moist. “They’re from Teemer and Spools. We must print the money here. It’ll look more official and we can control what goes out of the doors.”
    “Mr. Lipwig. You are turning the bank into a…a circus!”
    “Well, I’m the man with the top hat, Mr. Bent, so I suppose I’m the ringmaster!”
    He said it with a laugh, to lighten the mood a little, but Bent’s face was a sudden thundercloud.
    “Really, Mr. Lipwig? And whoever told you the ringmaster runs the circus? You are very much mistaken, sir! Why are you cutting off the other shareholders?”
    “Because they don’t know what a bank is about. Come with me to the Mint, will you?”
    He strode through the main hall, having to dodge and weave between the queues.
    “And you know what a bank is about, do you, sir?” said Bent, following behind in his jerky flamingo step.
    “I’m learning. Why do we have one queue in front of each clerk?” Moist demanded. “It means that if one customer takes up a lot of time, the whole queue has to wait. Then they’ll start hopping sideways from one queue to another and the next thing you know someone has a nasty head wound. Have one big queue and tell people to go to the next clerk free.