‘You’re my deputy while Mr Groat’s in hospital,’ said Moist. ‘How many postmen can you muster?’
‘About a dozen, sir, but what shall we—’
‘Get the mail moving, Mr Aggy! That’s what we do. Tell everyone that today’s special is Pseudopolis for ten pence, guaranteed! Everyone else can get on with cleaning up. There’s still some roof left. We’re open as usual. More open than usual.’
‘But . . .’ Aggy’s words failed him, and he waved at the debris. ‘All this?’
‘Neither rain nor fire, Mr Aggy!’ said Moist sharply.
‘Doesn’t say that on the motto, sir,’ said Aggy.
‘It will by tomorrow. Ah, Jim . . .’
The coachman bore down on Moist, his enormous driving cape flapping.
‘It was bloody Gilt, wasn’t it!’ he growled. ‘Arson around! What can we do for you, Mr Lipwig?’
‘Can you still run a service to Pseudopolis today?’ said Moist.
‘Yes,’ said Jim. ‘Harry and the lads got all the horses out as soon as they smelled smoke, and only lost one coach. We’ll help you, damn right about that, but the Trunk is running okay. You’ll be wasting your time.’
‘You provide the wheels, Jim, and I’ll give them something to carry,’ said Moist. ‘We’ll have a bag for you at ten.’
‘You’re very certain, Mr Lipwig,’ said Jim, putting his head on one side.
‘An angel came and told me in my sleep,’ said Moist.
Jim grinned. ‘Ah, that’d be it, then. An angel, eh? A very present help in times of trouble, or so I’m given to understand.’
‘So I believe,’ said Moist, and went up to the draughty, smoke-blackened, three-walled cave that was the wreckage of his office. He brushed off the ash from the chair, reached into his pocket, and put the Smoking Gnu’s letter on his desk.
The only people who could know when a clacks tower would break down must work for the company, right? Or used to work for it, more likely. Hah. That’s how things happened. That bank in Sto Lat, for example – he’d never have been able to forge those bills if that bent clerk hadn’t sold him that old ledger with all the signatures in. That had been a good day.
The Grand Trunk mustn’t just make enemies, it must mass-produce them. And now this Smoking Gnu wanted to help him. Outlaw signallers. Think of all the secrets they’d know . . .
He’d kept an ear open for clock chimes, and it was gone a quarter to nine now. What would they do? Blow up a tower? But people worked in the towers. Surely not . . .
‘Oh, Mr Lipwig!’
It is not often that a wailing woman rushes into a room and throws herself at a man. It had never happened to Moist before. Now it happened, and it seemed such a waste that the woman was Miss Maccalariat.
She tottered forward and clung to the startled Moist, tears streaming down her face.
‘Oh, Mr Lipwig!’ she wailed. ‘Oh, Mr Lipwig!’
Moist reeled under her weight. She was dragging at his collar so hard that he was likely to end up on the floor, and the thought of being found on the floor with Miss Maccalariat was— well, a thought that just couldn’t be thoughted. The head would explode before entertaining it.
She had a pink hairgrip in her grey hair. It had little hand-painted violets on it. The sight of it, a few inches from Moist’s eyes, was curiously disturbing.
‘Now, now, steady on, Miss Maccalariat, steady on,’ he muttered, trying to keep the balance for both of them.
‘Oh, Mr Lipwig!’
‘Yes indeed, Miss Maccalariat,’ he said desperately. ‘What can I do for—’
‘Mr Aggy said the Post Office won’t ever be rebuilt! He says Lord Vetinari will never release the money! Oh, Mr Lipwig! I dreamed all my life of working on the counter here! My grandmother taught me everything, she even made me practise sucking lemons to get the expression right! I’ve passed it all on to my daughter, too. She’s got a voice that’d take the skin off paint! Oh, Mr Lipwig!’
Moist searched wildly for somewhere to pat the woman that wasn’t soaked or out of bounds. He settled for her shoulder. He really, really needed Mr Groat. Mr Groat knew how to deal with things like this.
‘It’s all going to be all right, Miss Maccalariat,’ he said soothingly.
‘And poor Mr Groat!’ the woman sobbed.
‘I understand he’s going to be fine, Miss Maccalariat. You know what they say about the Lady Sybil: some people come out alive.’ I really, really hope he does, he added to himself. I’m lost without him.
‘It’s all so dreadful, Mr Lipwig!’ said Miss Maccalariat, determined to drain the bitter cup of despair to the very dregs. ‘We’re all going to be walking the streets!’
Moist held her by her arms and pushed her gently away, while fighting against a mental picture of Miss Maccalariat walking the streets. ‘Now you listen to me, Miss Mac— What is your first name, by the way?’
‘It’s Iodine, Mr Lipwig,’ said Miss Maccalariat, snuffling into a handkerchief. ‘My father liked the sound.’
‘Well . . . Iodine, I firmly believe that I will have the money to rebuild by the end of the day,’ said Moist. She’s blown her nose on it and, yes, yes, aargh, she’s going to put it back up the sleeve of her cardigan, oh, gods . . .
‘Yes, Mr Aggy said that, and there’s talk, sir. They say you sent the gods letters asking for money! Oh, sir! It’s not my place to say so, sir, but gods don’t send you money!’
‘I have faith, Miss Maccalariat,’ said Moist, drawing himself up.
‘My family have been Anoians for five generations, sir,’ said Miss Maccalariat. ‘We rattle the drawers every day, and we’ve never got anything solid, as you might say, excepting my granny who got an egg beater she didn’t remember putting there and we’re sure that was an accident—’
‘Mr Lipwig! Mr Lipwig!’ someone yelled. ‘They say the clacks— Oh, I’m so sorry . . .’ The sentence ended in syrup.
Moist sighed, and turned to the grinning newcomer in the charcoal-rimmed doorway. ‘Yes, Mr Aggy?’
‘We’ve heard the clacks has gone down again, sir! To Pseudopolis!’ said Aggy.
‘How unfortunate,’ said Moist. ‘Come, Miss Maccalariat, come, Mr Aggy – let’s move the mail!’
There was a crowd in what remained of the hall. As Moist had remarked, the citizens had an enthusiasm for new things. The post was an old thing, of course, but it was so old that it had magically become new again.
A cheer greeted Moist when he came down the steps. Give them a show, always give them a show. Ankh-Morpork would applaud a show.
Moist commandeered a chair, stood on it and cupped his hands.
‘Special today, ladies and gentlemen!’ he shouted above the din. ‘Mail to Pseudopolis, reduced to three pence only. Three pence! Coach goes at ten! And if anyone has clacks messages lodged with our unfortunate colleagues in the Grand Trunk Company, and would care to get them back, we will deliver them for free!’
This caused an additional stir, and a number of people peeled away from the crowd and hurried off.
‘The Post Office, ladies and gentlemen!’ yelled Moist. ‘We deliver!’ There was a cheer.
‘Do you want to know something really interesting, Mr Lipwig?’ said Stanley, hurrying up.
‘And what’s that, Stanley?’ said Moist, climbing down off the chair.
‘We’re selling lots of the new one-dollar stamps this morning! And do you know what? People are sending letters to themselves!’
‘What?’ said Moist, mystified.
‘Just so the stamps have been through the post, sir. That makes them real, you see! It proves they’ve been used. They’re collecting, them, sir! And it gets better, sir!’
‘How could it get better than that, Stanley?’ said Moist. He looked down. Yes, the boy had a new shirt, showing a picture of the penny stamp and bearing the legend: Ask Me About Stamps.
‘Sto Lat want Teemer and Spools to do them their own set! And the other cities are asking about it, too!’
Moist made a mental note: we’ll change the stamps often. And offer stamp designs to every city and country we can think of. Everyone will want to have their own stamps rather than ‘lick Vetinari’s back side’ and we’ll honour them, too, if they’ll deliver our mail, and Mr Spools will express his gratitude to us in very definite ways, I’ll see to it.
‘Sorry about your pins, Stanley.’
‘Pins?’ said the boy. ‘Oh, pins. Pins are just pointy metal things, sir. Pins are dead!
And so we progress, thought Moist. Aways keep moving. There may be something behind you.
All we need now is for the gods to smile on us.
Hmm. I think they’ll smile a little broader outside.
Moist stepped out into the daylight. The difference between the inside and the outside of the Post Office was less marked than formerly, but there were still a lot of people. There were a couple of watchmen, too. They’d be useful. They were already watching him suspiciously.