'Do you see?' said the chief cashier impatiently.
'Hmm?' said Moist, watching the woman scurry away.
'See here, you see?' said Bent, sitting down and pointing with what almost seemed like enthusiasm. 'By means of these treadles I can move my desk to face anywhere in the room! It is the panopticon of my little world. Nothing is beyond my eye!' He pedalled furiously and the whole dais began to rumble round on its turntable. 'And it can turn at two speeds, too, as you can see, because of this ingenious—'
'I can see that almost nothing is beyond your eye,' said Moist as Miss Drapes sat down. 'But I'm sorry to interrupt your work.'
Bent glanced at the in-tray and gave a little shrug. 'That pile? That will not take me long,' he said, setting the handbrake and standing up. Besides, I think it important that you see what we are really about at this point, because I must now take you to meet Hubert.' He gave a little cough.
'Hubert is not what you're about?' Moist suggested, and then headed back to the main hall.
'I'm sure he means well,' said Bent, leaving the words hanging in the air like a noose.
Out in the hall a dignified hush prevailed. A few people were at the counters, an old lady watched her little dog drink from the brass bowl inside the door, and any words that were uttered were spoken in a suitably hushed voice. Moist was all for money, it was one of his favourite things, but it didn't have to be something you mentioned very quietly in case it woke up. If money talked in here, it whispered.
The chief cashier opened a small and not very grand door behind the stairs and half hidden by some potted plants.
'Please be careful, the floor is always wet here,' he said, and led the way down some wide steps into the grandest cellar Moist had ever seen. Fine stone vaulting supported beautifully tiled ceilings stretching away into the gloom. There were candles everywhere, and in the middle distance something was sparkling and filling the colonnaded space with a blue-white glow.
'This was the undercroft of the temple,' said Bent, leading the way.
'Are you telling me this place doesn't just look like a temple?'
'It was built as a temple, yes, but never used as one.'
'Really?' said Moist. 'Which god?'
'None, as it turned out. One of the kings of Ankh commanded it to be built about nine hundred years ago,' said Bent. 'I suppose it was a case of speculative building. That is to say, he had no god in mind.'
'He hoped one would turn up?'
'Exactly, sir.'
'Like blue-tits?' said Moist, peering around. 'This place was a kind of celestial bird box?'
Bent sighed. 'You express yourself colourfully, Mr Lipwig, but I suppose there is some truth there. It didn't work, anyway. Then it got used as storage in case of siege, became an indoor market, and so on, and then Jocatello La Vice got the place when the city defaulted on a loan. It is all in the official history. Isn't the fornication wonderful?'
After quite a lengthy pause, Moist ventured: 'It is?'
'Don't you think so? There's more here than anywhere else in the city, I'm told.'
'Really?' said Moist, looking around nervously. 'Er, do you have to come down here at some special time?'
'Well, in banking hours usually, but we let groups in by appointment.'
'You know,' said Moist, 'I think this conversation has somehow got away from me…'
Bent waved vaguely at the ceiling. 'I refer to the wonderful vaulting,' he said. 'The word derives from fornix, meaning "arch".'
'Ah! Yes? Right!' said Moist. 'You know, I wouldn't be surprised if not many people knew that.'
And then Moist saw the Glooper, glowing among the arches.
Chapter 3
The Glooper — A proper Hubert — One very big mattress — Some observations on tourism — Gladys makes a sandwich — The Blind Letter Office — Mrs Lavish's posterity — An ominous note — Flight planning — An even more ominous note, and certainly more ominous than the first note — Mr Lipwig boards the wrong coach
MOIST HAD SEEN GLASS being bent and blown, and marvelled at the skill of the people who did it — marvelled as only a man can marvel whose sole skill is in bending words. Some of those geniuses had probably worked on this. But so had their counterparts from the hypothetical Other Side, glassblowers who had sold their souls to some molten god for the skill to blow glass into spirals and intersecting bottles and shapes that seemed to be quite close but some distance away at the same time. Water gurgled, sloshed and, yes, glooped along glass tubing. There was a smell of salt.
Bent nudged Moist, pointed to an improbable wooden hatstand, and wordlessly handed him a long yellow oilskin coat and a matching rain hat. He had already donned a similar outfit, and had magically procured an umbrella from somewhere.
'It's the Balance of Payments,' he said, as Moist struggled into the coat. 'He never gets it right.' There was a crash from somewhere, and water droplets rained down on them. 'See?' Bent added.
'What's it doing?' said Moist.
Bent rolled his eyes. 'Hell knows, Heaven suspects,' he said. He raised his voice. 'Hubert? We have a visitor!'
A distant splashing grew louder and a figure appeared around the edge of the glassware.
Rightly or wrongly, Hubert is one of those names you put a shape to. There may well be tall, slim Huberts, Moist would be the first to agree, but this Hubert was shaped like a proper Hubert, which is to say, stubby and plump. He had red hair, unusual, in Moist's experience, in the standard model Hubert. It grew thickly, straight up from his head, like the bristles of a brush; about five inches up, it appeared to have been cut short with the aid of shears and a spirit level. You could have stood a cup and saucer on it.
'A visitor?' said Hubert nervously. 'Wonderful! We don't get many down here!' Hubert wore a long white coat, with a breast pocket full of pencils.
'Really?' said Moist.
'Hubert, this is Mr Lipwig,' said Bent. 'He is here to… learn about us.'
'I'm Moist,' said Moist, stepping forward with his best smile and an extended hand.
'Oh, I'm sorry. We should have hung the raincoats nearer the door,' said Hubert. He looked at Moist's hand as if it was some interesting device, and then shook it carefully. 'You're not seeing us at our best, Mr Lipwick,' he said.
'Really?' said Moist, still smiling. How does the hair stay up like that, he wondered. Does he use glue, or what?
'Mr Lipwig is the Postmaster General, Hubert,' said Bent.
'Is he? Oh. I don't get out of the cellar very much these days,' said Hubert.
'Really?' said Moist, his smile now a bit glassy.
'No, we're so close to perfection, you see,' said Hubert. 'I really think we're nearly there…'
'Mr Hubert believes that this… device is a sort of crystal ball for showing the future,' said Bent, and rolled his eyes.
' Possible futures. Would Mr Lipstick like to see it in operation?' said Hubert, vibrating with enthusiasm and eagerness. Only a man with a heart of stone would have said no, so Moist made a wonderful attempt at indicating that all his dreams were coming true.
'I'd love to,' he said, 'but what does it actually do?'
too late, he saw the signs. Hubert grasped the lapels of his jacket, as if addressing a meeting, and swelled with the urge to communicate, or at least talk at length in the belief that it was the same thing.
'The Glooper, as it is affectionately known, is what I call a quote analogy machine unquote. It solves problems not by considering them as a numerical exercise but by actually duplicating them in a form we can manipulate: in this case, the flow of money and its effects within our society become water flowing through a glass matrix — the Glooper. The geometrical shape of certain vessels, the operation of valves and, although I say so myself, ingenious tipping buckets and flow-rate propellers enable the Glooper to simulate quite complex transactions. We can change the starting conditions, too, to learn the rules inherent in the system. For example, we can find out what happens if you halve the labour force
in the city by the adjustment of a few valves, rather than by going out into the streets and killing people.'
'A big improvement! Bravo!' said Moist desperately, and started to clap.
No one joined in. He shoved his hands in his pockets.
'Er, perhaps you would like a less, um, dramatic demonstration?' Hubert volunteered.
Moist nodded. 'Yes,' he said. 'Show me… show me what happens when people get fed up with banks,' he said.
'Ah, yes, a familiar one! Igor, set up program five!' Hubert shouted to some figure in the forest of glassware. There was the sound of squeaky screws being turned and the glug of reservoirs being topped up.
'Igor?' said Moist. 'You have an Igor?'
'Oh, yes,' said Hubert. 'That's how I get this wonderful light. They know the secret of storing lightning in jars! But don't let that worry you, Mr Lipspick. Just because I'm employing an Igor and working in a cellar doesn't mean I'm some sort of madman, ha ha ha!'
'Ha ha,' agreed Moist.
'Ha hah hah!,' said Hubert. 'Hahahahahaha!! Ahahaha-hhhhh!!!!!—'
Bent slapped him on the back. Hubert coughed. 'Sorry about that, it's the air down here,' he mumbled.
'It certainly looks very… complex, this thing of yours,' said Moist, striking out for normality.
'Er, yes,' said Hubert, a little bit thrown. 'And we are refining it all the time. For example, floats coupled to ingenious spring-loaded sluice gates elsewhere on the Glooper can allow changes in the level in one flask to automatically adjust flows in several other places in the system—'
'What's that for?' said Moist, pointing at random to a round bottle suspended in the tubing.
'Phase of the Moon valve,' said Hubert promptly.
'The moon affects how money moves around?'
'We don't know. It might. The weather certainly does.'
'Really?'
'Certainly!' Hubert beamed. 'And we're adding fresh influences all the time. Indeed, I will not be satisfied until my wonderful machine can completely mimic every last detail of our great city's economic cycle!' A bell rang, and he went on: 'Thank you, Igor! Let it go!'
Something clanked, and coloured waters began to foam and slosh along the bigger pipes. Hubert raised not only his voice but also a long pointer.
'Now, if we reduce public confidence in the banking system — watch that tube there — you will see here a flow of cash out of the banks and into Flask Twenty-eight, currently designated the Old Sock Under the Mattress. Even quite rich people don't want their money outside their control. See the mattress getting fuller, or perhaps I should say… thicker?'
'That's a lot of mattresses,' Moist agreed.
'I prefer to think of it as one mattress a third of a mile high.'
'Really?' said Moist.
Slosh! Valves opened somewhere, and water rushed along a new path.
'Now see how bank lending is emptying as the money drains into the Sock?' Gurgle! 'Watch Reservoir Eleven, over there. That means business expansion is slowing… there it goes, there it goes…' Drip!
'Now watch Bucket Thirty-four. It's tipping, it's tipping… there! The scale on the left of Flask Seventeen shows collapsing businesses, by the way. See Flask Nine beginning to fill? That's foreclosures. Job losses is Flask Seven… and there goes the valve on Flask Twenty-eight, as the socks are pulled out.' Flush! 'But what is there to buy? Over here we see that Flask Eleven has also drained…' Drip.
Except for the occasional gurgle, the aquatic activity subsided.
'And we end up in a position where we can't move because we're standing on our own hands, as it were,' said Hubert. 'Jobs vanishing, people without savings suffering, wages low, farms going back to wilderness, rampaging trolls coming down from the mountains—'
'They're here already,' said Moist. 'Some of them are even in the Watch.'
'Are you sure?' said Hubert.
'Yes, they've got helmets and everything. I've seen them.'
'Then I expect they'll be wanting to rampage back to the mountains,' said Hubert. 'I think I would if I were them.'
'You believe all that could really happen?' said Moist. 'A bunch of tubes and buckets can tell you that?'
'They are correlated to events very carefully, Mr Lips wick,' said Hubert, looking hurt. 'Correlation is everything. Did you know it is an established fact that hemlines tend to rise in times of national crisis?'
'You mean—?' Moist began, not at all certain how the sentence was going to end.
'Women's dresses get shorter,' said Hubert.
And that causes a national crisis? Really? How high do they go?'
Mr Bent coughed a leaden cough. 'I think perhaps we should go, Mr Lipwig,' he said. 'If you have seen all you want, no doubt you are in a hurry to leave.' There was a slight emphasis on 'leave'.
'What? Oh… yes,' said Moist. 'I probably should be getting along. Well, thank you, Hubert. It has been an education and no mistake.'
'I just can't get rid of the leaks,' said the little man, looking crestfallen. 'I swear that every joint is watertight, but we never end up with the same amount of water that we started with.'
'Of course not, Hubert,' said Moist, patting him on the shoulder. 'And that's because you're close to achieving perfection!'
'It is?' said Hubert, wide-eyed.
'Certainly. Everyone knows that at the end of the week you never have quite as much money as you think you should. It's a well-known fact!'
The sunrise of delight dawned on Hubert's face. Topsy was right, Moist told himself. I am good with people.
'Now demonstrated by the Glooper!' Hubert breathed. 'I shall write a paper on it!'
'Or you could write it on paper!' said Moist, shaking him warmly by the hand. 'Okay, Mr Bent, let us tear ourselves away!'
When they were walking up the main stairs Moist said: 'What relation is Hubert to the current chairman?'
'Nephew,' said Bent. 'How did you—?'
'I'm always interested in people,' said Moist, smiling to himself. 'And there's the red hair, of course. Why does Mrs Lavish have two crossbows on her desk?'
'Family heirlooms, sir,' lied Bent. It was a deliberate, flagrant lie, and he must have meant it to be seen as such. Family heirlooms. And she sleeps in her office. All right, she's an invalid, but people usually do that at home.
She doesn't intend to step out of the room. She's on guard. And she's very particular about who comes in.
'Do you have any interests, Mr Bent?'
'I do my job with care and attention, sir.'
'Yes, but what do you do in the evenings?'
'I double-check the day's totals in my office, sir. I find counting very… satisfying.'
'You're very good at it, yes?'
'Better than you can imagine, sir.'
'So if I save ninety-three dollars forty-seven a year for seven years at two and a quarter per cent, compound, how—'
'$835.13 calculated once annually, sir,' said Bent calmly.
Yes, and twice you've known the exact time, thought Moist. And you didn't look at a watch. You are good with numbers. Inhumanly good, perhaps…
'No holidays?' he said aloud.
'I did a walking tour of the major banking houses of Uberwald last summer, sir. It was most instructive.'
'That must have taken weeks. I'm glad you felt able to tear yourself away!'
'Oh, it was easy, sir. Miss Drapes, who is the senior clerk, sent a coded clacks of the day's business to each of my lodging houses at the close of business every day. I was able to review it over my after-dinner strudel and respond instantly with advice and instructions.'
'Is Miss Drapes a useful member of staff?'
'Indeed. She performs her duties with care and alacrity.' He paused. They were at the top of the stairs. Bent turned and looked directly at Moist. 'I have worked here all my life, Mr Lipwig. Be careful of the Lavish family. Mrs Lavish is the best of them, a wonderful woman. The others… are used to getting their own way.'
Old family, old mo
ney. That kind of family. Moist felt a distant call, like the song of the skylark. It came back to taunt him every time, for example, he saw an out-of-towner in the street with a map and a perplexed expression, crying out to be relieved of his money in some helpful and hard-to-follow way.
'Dangerously so?' he said.
Bent looked a little affronted at this directness. 'They are not at home to disappointment, sir. They have tried to declare Mrs Lavish insane, sir.'
'Really?' said Moist. 'Compared to who?'
The wind blew through the town of Big Cabbage, which liked to call itself the Green Heart of the Plains.
It was called Big Cabbage because it was home to the Biggest Cabbage in the World, and the town's inhabitants were not very creative when it came to names. People travelled miles to see this wonder; they'd go inside its concrete interior and peer out through the windows, buy cabbage-leaf bookmarks, cabbage ink, cabbage shirts, Captain Cabbage dolls, musical boxes carefully crafted from kohlrabi and cauliflower that played 'The Cabbage Eater's Song', cabbage jam, kale ale, and green cigars made from a newly developed species of cabbage and rolled on the thighs of local maidens, presumably because they liked it.
Then there was the excitement of BrassicaWorld, where very small children could burst into terrified screams at the huge head of Captain Cabbage himself, along with his friends Cauliflower the Clown and Billy Broccoli. For older visitors there was of course the Cabbage Research Institute, over which a green pall always hung and downwind of which plants tended to be rather strange and sometimes turned to watch you as you passed.
And then… what better way to record the day of a lifetime than pose for a picture at the behest of the black-clad man with the iconograph who took the happy family and promised a framed, coloured picture, sent right to their home, for a mere three dollars, P&P included, one dollar deposit to cover expenses, if you would be so good, sir, and may I say what wonderful children you have there, madam, they are a credit to you and no mistake, oh, and did I say that if you are not delighted with the framed picture then send no further money and we shall say no more about it?
Making Money d-36 Page 6