Making Money

Mishter Shpangler,” said Cribbins.
    Moist flashed a little smile. “In fact I’m not Mr. Spangler, Mr.—”
    I called him Cribbins! Just then! I called him Cribbins! Did he tell me his name? Did he notice? He must have noticed!
    “—I beg your pardon, l mean Reverend,” he managed, and the average person would not have noticed the tiny pause and quite-adroit save. But Cribbins wasn’t average.
    “Thank you, Mr. Lipwig,” he said, and Moist heard the drawn out mister and the explosively sardonic “Lipwig.” They meant “Gotcha!”
    Cribbins winked at Moist and strolled off through the banking hall, shaking his tin, his teeth accompanying him with a medley of horrible dental noises.
    “Woe and thrice woe szss! is the man who stealssh by words, for his tongue shall cleave to the roof of his mouth pock! spare a few coppersh for the poor orphans sweessh! Brothers and shisters! to those svhip! that hath shall be giventh, generally spheaking…”
    “I shall call the guards,” said Mr. Bent firmly. “We don’t allow beggars in the bank.”
    Moist grabbed his arm. “No,” he said urgently, “not with all these people in here. Manhandling a man of the cloth and all that. It won’t look good. I think he’ll be going soon.”
    Now he’ll let me stew, thought Moist, as Cribbins headed nonchalantly toward the door. That’s his way. He’ll spin it out. Then he’ll hit me for money, again and again.
    Okay, but what could Cribbins prove? But did there need to be proof? If he started talking about Albert Spangler, it could get bad. Would Vetinari throw him to the wolves? He might. He probably would. You could bet your hat that he wouldn’t play the resurrection game without lots of contingency plans.
    Well, he had some time, at least. Cribbins wouldn’t go for a quick kill. He liked to watch people wriggle.
    “Are you all right?” said Bent. Moist came back to reality.
    “What? Oh, fine,” he said.
    “You should not encourage that sort of person in here, you know.”
    Moist shook himself.
    “You are right about that, Mr. Bent. Let’s get to the Mint, shall we?”
    “Yes, sir. But I warn you, Mr. Lipwig, these men will not be won over by fancy words!”

    “INSPECTORS…” said Mr. Shady, ten minutes later, turning the word over in his mouth like a candy.
    “I need people who value the high traditions of the Mint,” said Moist, and did not add: Like making coins very, very slowly and taking your work home with you.
    “Inspectors,” said Mr. Shady again. Behind him, the Men of the Sheds held their caps in their hands and watched Moist owlishly, except when Mr. Shady was speaking; then they stared at the back of the man’s neck.
    They were all in Mr. Shady’s official shed, which was built high up on the wall, like a swallow’s nest. It creaked whenever anyone moved.
    “And of course, some of you will still be needed to deal with the outworkers,” Moist went on, “but in the main it will be your job to see that Mr. Spools’s men arrive on time, comport themselves as they should, and observe proper security.”
    “Security,” said Mr. Shady, as if tasting the word. Moist saw a flicker of evil light in the eyes of the Men. It said: These buggers will be taking over our Mint but they’ll have to go past us to get out of the door. Hoho!
    “And of course you can keep the sheds,” said Moist. “I also have plans for commemorative coins and other items, so your skills will not be wasted. Fair enough?”
    Mr. Shady looked at his fellows and then back to Moist.
    “We’d like to talk about this,” he said.
    Moist nodded at him, and at Bent, and led the way down the creaking, swaying staircase to the floor of the Mint, where the parts of the new press were already being stacked up. Bent gave a little shudder when he saw it.
    “They won’t accept, you know,” he said with unconcealed hope in his voice. “They’ve been doing things the same way here for hundreds of years! And they are craftsmen!”
    “So were the people who used to make knives out of flint,” said Moist. In truth, he’d been amazed at himself. It must have been the encounter with Cribbins. It had made his brain race. “Look, I don’t like to see skills unused,” he said, “but I’ll give them better wages and a decent job and use of the Sheds. They wouldn’t get an offer like that in a hundred years—”
    Someone was coming down the swaying stairs. Moist recognized him as Young Alf, who, amazingly, had