Making Money

-the red nose. And he was arm in arm with Miss Drapes.

The staff stared at it all, too shocked for a reaction.

'Ladies and gentlemen,' said Bent, his voice echoing in the sudden silence, 'I owe so many apologies. I have made many mistakes. Indeed, my whole life has been a mistake. I believed that true worth lodged in lumps of metal. Much of what I believed is worthless, in fact, but Mr Lipwig believed in me and so I am here today. Let us make money based not on a trick of geology but on the ingenuity of hand and brain. And now—' He paused, because Miss Drapes had squeezed his arm.

'Oh, yes, how could I forget?' Bent went on. 'What I do now believe with all my heart is that Miss Drapes will marry me in the Chapel of Fun in the Fools' Guild on Saturday, the ceremony to be conducted by the Reverend Brother "Whacko" Whopply. You are all of course invited—'

'—but be careful what you wear because it's a whitewash wedding,' said Miss Drapes coyly, or what she probably thought was coyly.

'And with that it only remains for me to—' Bent tried to continue, but the staff had realized what their ears had heard, and closed in on the couple, the women drawn to the soon-not-to-be-Miss Drapes by the legendarily high gravity of an engagement ring, while the men went from slapping Mr Bent on the back to the unthinkable, which involved picking him up and carrying him around the room on their shoulders.

Eventually it was Moist who had to cup his hands and shout: 'Look at the time, ladies and gentlemen! Our customers are waiting, ladies and gentlemen! Let us not stand in the way of making money! We mustn't be a dam in the economic flow!'

… and he wondered what Hubert was doing now…

With his tongue out in concentration, Igor removed a slim tube from the gurgling bowels of the Glooper.

A few bubbles zigzagged to the top of the central hydro unit and burst on the surface with a gloop.

Hubert breathed a deep sigh of relief.

'Well done, Igor, only one more to… Igor?'

'Right here, thur,' said Igor, stepping out from behind him.

'It looks as though it's working, Igor. Good old hyphenated silicon! But you're sure it'll still work as an economic modeller afterwards?'

'Yeth, thur. I am confident in the new valve array. The thity will affect the Glooper, if you withth, but not the other way around.'

'Even so, it would be dreadful if it fell into the wrong hands, Igor. I wonder if I should present the Glooper to the government. What do you think?'

Igor gave this some thought. In his experience a prime definition of 'the wrong hands' was 'the government'.

'I think you ought to take the opportunity to get out a bit more, thur,' he said kindly.

'Yes, I suppose I have been overdoing it,' said Hubert. 'Um… about Mr Lipwig…'

'Yeth?'

Hubert looked like a man who had been wrestling with his conscience and got a knee in his eye. 'I want to put the gold back in the vault. That'll stop all this trouble.'

'But it wath thtolen away yearth ago, thur,' Igor explained patiently. 'It wathn't your fault.'

'No, but they were blaming Mr Lipwig, who's always been very kind to us.'

'I think he got off on that one, thur.'

'But we could put it back,' Hubert insisted. 'It would come back from wherever it was taken to, wouldn't it?'

Igor scratched his head, causing a faint metallic noise. He had been following events with more care than Hubert employed and as far as he could see the missing gold had been spent by the Lavishes years ago. Mr Lipwig had been in trouble, but it seemed to Igor that trouble hit Mr Lipwig like a big wave hitting a flotilla of ducks. Afterwards there was no wave but there was still a lot of duck.

'It might,' he conceded.

'So that would be a good thing, yes?' Hubert insisted. 'And he's been very kind to us. We owe him that little favour.'

'I don't think—'

'That is an order, Igor!'

Igor beamed. At last! All this politeness had been getting on his nerves. What an Igor expected was insane orders. That was what an Igor was born (and to some extent, made) for. A shouted order to do something of dubious morality with an unpredictable outcome? Thweet!

Of course, thunder and lightning would have been more appropriate. Instead there was nothing more than the bubbling of the Glooper and gentle glassy noises that always made Igor think he was in a wind-chime factory. But sometimes you just had to improvise.

He topped up the little Gold Reserve flask to the ten tons marker, fiddled with the shiny valve array for a minute or two, and then stood back.

'When I turn thith wheel, marthter, the Glooper will depothit an analogue of the gold in the vault and then clothe the connection.'

'Very good, Igor.'

'Er, you wouldn't like to thout thomething, would you,' he hinted.

'Like what?'

'Oh, I don't know… perhapth: "They said… sorry, thaid… thorry… I wath mad but thith will thow them!!"'

'That's not really me.'

'No?' said Igor. 'Perhapth a laugh, then?'

'Would that help?'

'Yeth, thur,' said Igor. 'It will help me.'