Making Money

‘Are you all right?’ said Moist.

‘Fine!’

‘What did … it feel like?’

‘Hard to explain,’ said Clamp. ‘But it sounded like the smell of raspberries tastes.’

‘Really? Oh. I suppose that’s all right, then. And you really feel okay? In yourself?’ said Moist, probing for the dreadful drawback. It had to be there. But Owls— Exorbit looked happy and full of confidence and vim, a man ready to take what life threw at him and knock it out of the court.

Igor was winding up his wiring with a very smug look on what, under all those scars, was probably his face.

Moist felt a pang of guilt. He was an Uberwald boy, he’d come down the Vilinus Pass like everyone else, trying to seek his fortune — correction, everybody else’s fortune — and he had no right to pick up the fashionable lowland prejudice against the clan of Igors. After all, didn’t they simply put into practice what so many priests professed to believe: that the body was just a rather heavy suit of cheap material clothing the invisible, everlasting soul, and therefore, swapping around bits and pieces like spare parts was surely no worse than running a shonky shop for used clothing? It was a constant source of hurt amazement to Igors that people couldn’t see that this was both sensible and provident, at least up until the time when the axe slipped and people needed someone to lend a hand in a hurry. At a time like that, even an Igor looked good.

Mostly they looked … serviceable. Igors, with their obliviousness to pain, wonderful aids to healing and marvellous ability to carry out surgery on themselves with the help of a hand mirror, could presumably not look like a stumpy butler who’d been left in the rain for a month. Igorinas all looked stunning, but there was invariably something — a beautifully curved scar under one eye, a ring of decorative stitching around a wrist — that was for the Look. That was disconcerting, but an Igor always had his heart in the right place. Or a heart, at least.

‘Well, er … well done, Igor,’ Moist managed. ‘Ready to make a start on the ol’ dollar bill, then, Mr, er … Clamp?’

Mr Clamp’s smile was full of sunbeams. ‘Done it!’ he announced. ‘Did it this morning!’

‘Surely not!’

‘Indeed I have! Come and see!’ The little man walked over to a table and lifted a sheet of paper.

The banknote gleamed, in purple and gold. It gave off money in rays. It seemed to float above the paper like a small magic carpet. It said wealth and mystery and tradition—

‘We’re going to make so much money!’ said Moist. We’d better, he added to himself. We’ll need to print at least 600,000 of these, unless I can come up with some bigger denominations.

But there it was, so beautiful you wanted to cry, and make lots like it, and put them in your wallet.

‘How did you do it so quickly?’

‘Well, a lot of it is just geometry,’ said Mr Clamp. ‘Mr Igor here was kind enough to make me a little device which was a great help there. It’s not finished, of course, and I haven’t even started on the other side yet. I think I’ll make a start on that now, in fact, while I’m still fresh.’

‘You think you can do better?’ said Moist, awed in the presence of genius.

‘I feel so … full of energy!’ said Clamp.

‘That would be the elecktrical fluid, I expect,’ said Moist.

‘No, I mean I can see so clearly what needs to be done! Before, it was all like some horrible weight I had to lift, but now everything is clear and light!’

‘Well, I’m glad to hear it,’ said Moist, not totally certain that he was. ‘Do excuse me, I have a bank to run.’

He hurried through the arches and entered the main hall via the unassuming door in time to very nearly collide with Bent.

‘Ah, Mr Lipwig, I wondered where you were—’

‘Is this going to be important, Mr Bent?’

The chief cashier looked offended — as if he’d ever trouble Moist about anything that was not important.

‘There are lots of men outside the Mint,’ he said. ‘With trolls and carts. They say you want them to install a’ — Bent shuddered — ‘a printing engine!’

‘That’s right,’ said Moist. ‘They’re from Teemer & Spools. We must print the money here. It’ll look more official and we can control what goes out of the doors.’

‘Mr Lipwig. You are turning the bank into a … a circus!’

‘Well, I’m the man with the top hat, Mr Bent, so I suppose I’m the ringmaster!’ He said it with a laugh, to lighten the mood a little, but Bent’s face was a sudden thundercloud.

‘Really, Mr Lipwig? And whoever told you the ringmaster runs the circus? You are very much mistaken, sir! Why are you cutting out the other shareholders?’

‘Because they don’t know what a bank is about. Come with me to the Mint, will you?’ He strode through the main hall, having to dodge and weave between the queues.

‘And you know what a bank is about, do you, sir?’ said Bent, following behind with his jerky flamingo step.