Making Money

ever done,” said Clamp.
    Moist patted him convivially on the shoulder and then marched toward Igor, who was already looking defensive.
    “What have you done to that man?” said Moist.
    “I have made him a well-balanthed perthonality, no longer bethet with anxthietieth, fearth, and the demonth of paranoia,” said Igor.
    Moist glanced at Igor’s workbench, a brave thing to do by any standards. On it was a jar with something indistinct floating in it. Moist looked closer, another minor act of heroism when you were in an Igor-rich environment.
    It was not a happy turnip. It was blotchy. It was bouncing gently from one side of the jar to another, occasionally turning over. “I see,” said Moist. “But it would appear, regrettably, that by giving our friend the relaxed and hopeful attitude toward life of, not to put too fine a point on it, a turnip, you have also given him the artistic abilities of, and I have no hesitation in using the term again, a turnip.”
    “But he ith much happier in himthelf,” said Igor.
    “Granted, but how much of himself is, and I really don’t wish to keep repeating myself here, of a root-vegetable-like nature?”
    Igor considered this for some time. “Ath a medical man, thir,” he said, “I mutht conthider what ith betht for the pathient. At the moment he ith happy and content and hath no careth in the world. Why would he give up all thith for a mere fathility with a penthil?”
    Moist was aware of an insistent bonk-bonk. It was the turnip banging itself against the side of the jar. “That is an interesting and philosophical point,” he said, once again looking at Clamp’s happy yet somewhat unfocused expression. “But it seems to me that all those nasty little details were what made him, well, him.” The frantic banging of the vegetable grew louder. Igor and Moist stared from the jar to the eerily smiling man.
    “Igor, I’m not sure you know what makes people tick.”
    Igor gave an avuncular little chuckle. “Oh, believe me, thur—”
    “Igor?” said Moist.
    “Yeth, marthter,” said Igor gloomily.
    “Go and fetch the damn wires again, will you.”
    “Yeth, marthter.”

    MOIST GOT BACK upstairs again to find himself in the middle of a panic. A tearful Miss Drapes spotted him and click-clicked over, at speed.
    “It’s Mr. Bent, sir. He just rushed out, yelling! We can’t find him anywhere!”
    “Why are you looking?” said Moist, and then realized he’d said it aloud. “I meant, what is the reason for you looking?”
    The story unfolded. As Miss Drapes talked, Moist got the impression that all the other listeners were getting the point and he wasn’t.
    “So, okay, he made a mistake,” he said. “No harm done, is there? It’s all been sorted out, right? A bit embarrassing, I dare say…” But, he reminded himself, an error is worse than a sin, isn’t it.
    But that’s plain daft, his sensible self pointed out. He could have said something like, “You see? Even I can make a mistake through a moment’s inattention! We must be forever vigilant!” Or he could have said, “I did this on purpose to test you!” Even schoolteachers know that one. I can think of half a dozen ways to wriggle out of something like that. But then I’m a wriggler. I don’t think he’s ever wriggled in his life.
    “I hope he hasn’t done something…silly,” said Miss Drapes, fishing a crumpled handkerchief out of a sleeve.
    Something…silly, thought Moist. That’s the phrase people used when they were thinking about someone jumping into the river or taking the entire contents of the medicine box in one go. Silly things like that.
    “I’ve never met a less silly man,” he said.
    “Well, er…we’ve always wondered about him, to be honest,” said a clerk. “I mean, he’s in at dawn and one of the cleaners told me he’s often in here late at night—What? What? That hurt!”
    Miss Drapes, who had nudged him hard, now whispered urgently in his ear. The man deflated and looked awkwardly at Moist.
    “Sorry, sir, I spoke out of turn,” he mumbled.
    “Mr. Bent is a good man, Mr. Lipwig,” said Miss Drapes. “He drives himself hard.”
    “Drives all of you hard, it seems to me,” said Moist.
    This attempt at solidarity with the laboring masses didn’t seem to hit the mark.
    “If you can’t stand the heat, get off the pot, that’s what I say,” said a senior clerk, and there was a general murmur of agreement.
    “Er, I think you get out of the kitchen,”