The Wit And Wisdom Of Discworld

than a penny to make a penny’ Moist murmured. ‘Is it just me, or is that wrong?’
    ‘But, you see, once you have made it, a penny keeps on being a penny’ said Mr Bent. ‘That’s the magic of it.’
    ‘It is?’ said Moist. ‘Look, it’s a copper disc. What do you expect it to become?’
    ‘In the course of a year, just about everything,’ said Mr Bent, smoothly. ‘It becomes some apples, part of a cart, a pair of shoelaces, some hay, an hour’s occupancy of a theatre seat. It may even become a stamp and send a letter, Mr Lipwig. It might be spent three hundred times and yet - and this is the good part - it is still one penny, ready and willing to be spent again. It is not an apple, which will go bad. Its worth is fixed and stable. It is not consumed.’
    *
    Mr Fusspot was the smallest and ugliest dog Moist had ever seen. It reminded him of those goldfish with the huge bulging eyes that look as though they are about to explode. Its nose, on the other hand, looked stoved in. It wheezed, and its legs were so bandy that it must sometimes trip over its own feet.
    The dog gave a little yappy bark and then covered Moist’s face in all that was best in dog slobber.
    *
    ‘I don’t really understand how banks work.’
    ‘How do you think they work?’
    ‘Well, you take rich people’s money and lend it to suitable people at interest, and give as little as possible of the interest back.’
    ‘Yes, and what is a suitable person?’
    ‘Someone who can prove they don’t need the money?’
    *
    ‘Old money’ meant that it had been made so long ago that the black deeds which had originally filled the coffers were now historically irrelevant. Funny, that: a brigand for a father was something you kept quiet about, but a slave-taking pirate for a great-great-great-grandfather was something to boast of over the port. Time turned the evil bastards into rogues, and rogue was a word with a twinkle in its eye and nothing to be ashamed of.
    *
    ‘I did not become ruler of Ankh-Morpork by understanding the city. Like banking, the city is depressingly easy to understand. I have remained ruler by getting the city to understand me.’

    The city bleeds, Mr Lipwig, and you are the clot I need. .

    The lady in the boardroom was certainly an attractive woman, but since she worked for the Times Moist felt unable to award her total ladylike status. Ladies didn’t fiendishly quote exactly what you said but didn’t exactly mean, or hit you around the ear with unexpectedly difficult questions. Well, come to think of it, they did, quite often, but she got paid for it.
    *
    ‘The world is full of things worth more than gold. But we dig the damn stuff up and then bury it in a different hole. Where’s the sense in that? What are we, magpies? Good heavens, potatoes are worth more than gold!’
    ‘Surely not!’
    ‘If you were shipwrecked on a desert island, what would you prefer, a bag of potatoes or a bag of gold?’
    ‘Yes, but a desert island isn’t Ankh-Morpork!’
    ‘And that proves gold is only valuable because we agree it is, right? It’s just a dream. But a potato is always worth a potato, anywhere. A knob of butter and a pinch of salt and you’ve got a meal, anywhere. Bury gold in the ground and you’ll be worrying about thieves for ever. Bury a potato and in due season you could be looking at a dividend of a thousand per cent.’
    *
    ‘Vetinari has a dog?’
    ‘Had. Wuffles. Died some time ago. There’s a little grave in the Palace grounds. He goes there alone once a week and puts a dog biscuit on it.’
    ‘Vetinari does that?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Vetinari the cool, heartless, calculating tyrant?’
    ‘Indeed.’
    *
    Don’t let me detain you. What a wonderful phrase Vetinari had devised. The jangling double meaning set up undercurrents of uneasiness in the most innocent of minds. The man had found ways of bloodless tyranny that put the rack to shame.
    *
    Stamp collecting! It had started on day one, and then ballooned like some huge … thing, running on strange, mad rules. Was there any other field where flaws made things worth more? Would you buy a suit just because one arm was shorter than the other? Or because a bit of spare cloth was still attached?
    *
    Claud Maximillian Overton Transpire Dibbler, a name bigger than the man himself. Everyone knew C. M. O. T Dibbler. He sold pies and sausages off a tray, usually to people who were the worse for drink who then became the worse for pies.
    *
    Moist had eaten