Making Money

It was not a happy turnip. It was blotchy. It was bouncing gently from one side of the jar to another, occasionally turning over. 'I see,' said Moist. 'But it would appear, regrettably, that by giving our friend the relaxed and hopeful attitude to life of, not to put too fine a point on it, a turnip, you have also given him the artistic abilities of, and I have no hesitation in using the term again, a turnip.'

'But he ith much happier in himthelf,' said Igor.

'Granted, but how much of himself is, and I really don't wish to keep repeating myself here, of a root-vegetable-like nature?'

Igor considered this for some time. 'Ath a medical man, thur,' he said, 'I mutht conthider what ith betht for the pathient. At the moment he ith happy and content and hath no careth in the world. Why would he give up all thith for a mere fathility with a penthil?'

Moist was aware of an insistent bonk-bonk. It was the turnip banging itself against the side of the jar. 'That is an interesting and philosophical point,' he said, once again looking at Clamp's happy yet somewhat unfocused expression. 'But it seems to me that all those nasty little details were what made him, well, him.' The frantic banging of the vegetable grew louder. Igor and Moist stared from the jar to the eerily smiling man.

'Igor, I'm not sure you know what makes people tick.'

Igor gave an avuncular little chuckle. 'Oh, believe me, thur—'

'Igor?' said Moist.

'Yeth, Marthter,' said Igor gloomily.

'Go and fetch the damn wires again, will you.' 'Yeth, Marthter.'

Moist got back upstairs again to find himself in the middle of a panic. A tearful Miss Drapes spotted him and click-clicked over, at speed.

'It's Mr Bent, sir. He just rushed out, yelling! We can't find him anywhere!'

'Why are you looking?' said Moist, and then realized he'd said it aloud. 'I meant, what is the reason for you looking?'

The story unfolded. As Miss Drapes talked Moist got the impression that all the other listeners were getting the point and he wasn't.

'So, okay, he made a mistake,' he said. 'No harm done, is there? It's all been sorted out, right? A bit embarrassing, I dare say…' But, he reminded himself, an error is worse than a sin, isn't it?

But that's plain daft, his sensible self pointed out. He could have said something like: 'You see? Even I can make a mistake through a moment's inattention! We must be forever vigilant!' Or he could have said: 'I did this on purpose to test you!' Even schoolteachers know that one. I can think of half a dozen ways to wriggle out of something like that. But then I'm a wriggler. I don't think he's ever wriggled in his life.

'I hope he hasn't done something… silly,' said Miss Drapes, fishing a crumpled handkerchief out of a sleeve.

Something… silly, thought Moist. That's the phrase people used when they were thinking about someone jumping into the river or taking the entire contents of the medicine box in one go. Silly things like that.

'I've never met a less silly man,' he said.

'Well, er… we've always wondered about him, to be honest,' said a clerk. 'I mean, he's in at dawn and one of the cleaners told me he's often in here late at night— What? What? That hurt!'

Miss Drapes, who had nudged him hard, now whispered urgently in his ear. The man deflated and looked awkwardly at Moist. 'Sorry, sir, I spoke out of turn,' he mumbled.

'Mr Bent is a good man, Mr Lipwig,' said Miss Drapes. 'He drives himself hard.'

'Drives all of you hard, it seems to me,' said Moist.

This attempt at solidarity with the labouring masses didn't seem to hit the mark.

'If you can't stand the heat, get off the pot, that's what I say,' said a senior clerk, and there was a general murmur of agreement.

'Er, I think you get out of the kitchen,' said Moist.' "Get off the pot" is the alternative when—'

'Half the chief cashiers in the Plains have worked in this room,' said Miss Drapes. 'And quite a few managers, now. And Miss Lee, who's deputy manager of Apsly's Commercial Bank in Sto Lat, she got the job because of the letter Mr Bent wrote. Bent-trained, you see. That counts for a lot. If you've got a reference from Mr Bent, you can walk into any bank and get a job with a snap of your fingers.'

'And if you stay, the pay here is better than anywhere,' a clerk put in. 'He told the Board, if they want the best, they'd have to pay for it!'

'Oh, he's demanding,' said another clerk, 'but I hear they're all working for a Human Resources Manager at Pipeworth's Bank now, and if it comes to that I'll take Mr Bent any day of the week. At least he thinks I'm a person. I was hearing where she was timing how long people spent in the privy!'

'They call it Time and Motion study,' said Moist. 'Look, I expect Mr Bent just wants to be alone for a while. Who was he yelling at, the lad who'd made a mistake?… or didn't make it, I mean.'