Making Money

‘Keeps banks honest,’ said Poleforth, on the basis that truth is achieved by repetition. And, with nods all round, this was the feeling of Tenth Egg Street. So long as the gold was somewhere, it kept banks honest and everything was okay. Moist felt humbled by such faith. If the gold was somewhere, herons would no longer eat frogs, either. But in fact there was no power in the world that could keep a bank honest if it didn’t want to be.

Still, not a bad start to his first day, even so. He could build on it.

It started to rain, not hard, but the kind of fine rain where you can almost get away without an umbrella. No cabs bothered to trawl Tenth Egg Street for trade, but there was one at the kerb in Losing Street, the horse sagging in the harness, the driver hunched into his greatcoat, the lamps flickering in the dusk. With the rain getting to the blobby, soaking stage, it was a sight for damp feet.

He hurried over, climbed in, and a voice in the gloom said: ‘Good evening, Mr Lipwig. It’s so nice to meet you at last. I’m Pucci. I’m sure we will be friends …’

‘Now, you see, that was good,’ said Sergeant Colon of the Watch, as the figure of Moist von Lipwig disappeared round the corner, still accelerating. ‘He went right through the cab window without touching the sides, bounced off that bloke creepin’ up, very nice roll as he landed, I thought, and he still had hold of the little dog the whole time. Done it before, I shouldn’t wonder. Nevertheless, I’m forced, on balance, to consider him a twit.’

‘The first cab,’ said Corporal Nobbs, shaking his head. ‘Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. I would not have thought it of a man like him.’

‘My point exactly,’ said Colon. ‘When you know you’ve got enemies at large, never, never get in the first cab. Fact of life. Even things what live under rocks know it.’

They watched the former creeper gloomily picking up the remains of his iconograph, while Pucci screamed at him from the coach.

‘I bet when the first cab was built, no one dared to get into it, eh, sarge?’ said Nobby happily. ‘I bet the first cabby used to go home every night starvin’ on account of everyone knowin’, right?’

‘Oh, no, Nobby, people with no enemies at large would be okay. Now let’s go and report.’

‘What does it mean, “at large”, anyway,’ said Nobby, as they ambled towards the Chittling Street Watch House and the certain prospect of a cup of hot sweet tea.

‘It means large enemies, Nobby. It’s as clear as the nose on your face. Especially yours.’

‘Well, she’s a large girl, that Pucci Lavish.’

‘And nasty enemies to have, that family,’ Colon opined. ‘What’s the odds?’

‘Odds, sarge?’ said Nobby innocently.

‘You’re runnin’ a book, Nobby. You always run a book.’

‘Can’t get any takers, sarge. Foregone conclusion,’ said Nobby.

‘Ah, right. Sensible. Lipwig goin’ to be found lyin’ in chalk by Sunday?’

‘No, sarge. Everyone thinks he’ll win.’

Moist woke up in the big soft bed and strangled a scream.

Pucci! Aaagh! And in a state of what the delicately inclined called dishabille. He’d always wondered what dishabille looked like, but he’d never expected to see so much of it in one go. Even now some of his memory cells were still trying to die.

But he wouldn’t be Moist von Lipwig if a certain amount of insouciance didn’t rise to heal the wounds. He’d got away, after all. Oh, yes. It wasn’t as though it was the first window he’d jumped through. And the sound of Pucci’s scream of rage was almost as loud as the crack the man’s iconograph made as it hit the cobbles. The ol’ honey trap game. Hah. But it was high time he did something illegal, just to get his mind back to a proper state of cynical self-preservation. He wouldn’t have got into the first cab a year ago, that was for sure. Mind you, it would be a strange jury that believed he could be attracted to Pucci Lavish; he couldn’t see that standing up in court.

He got up, dressed and listened hopefully for signs of life from the kitchen. In their absence, he made himself some black coffee.

Armed with this he made his way into the office, where Mr Fusspot dozed in his in-tray and the official top hat sat, accusingly black.

Ah, yes, he was going to do something about that, wasn’t he?

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the little pot of glue, which was one of the convenient ones with a brush in the lid, and after some careful spreading began to pour the glittering flakes as smoothly as he could.

He was still engrossed in this exercise when Gladys loomed in his vision like an eclipse of the sun, holding what turned out to be a bacon and egg sandwich two feet long and one-eighth of an inch thick. She’d also picked up his copy of the Times.

He groaned. He’d made the front page. He usually did. It was his athletic mouth. It ran away with him whenever he saw a notebook.

Er … he’d made page two as well. Oh, and the lead editorial. Bugger, even the political cartoon, too, the one that was never much of a laugh.