‘Ubberwald,’ he read out.

‘That’s “Überwald”,’ said a small, squeaky but very clear voice. ‘The dots make it a sort of long “ooo” sound. But you’re doing well.’

‘Ooooooberwald?’

‘There’s such a thing as too much pronunciation, kid,’ said another voice, which sounded half asleep. ‘But you know the best thing about Überwald? It’s a long, long way from Sto Lat. It’s a long way from Pseudopolis. It’s a long way from anywhere where the Commander of the Watch says he’ll have us boiled alive if he ever sees us again. And it’s not very modern. Bad roads. Lots of mountains in the way. People don’t move about much up here. So news doesn’t travel very fast, see? And they probably don’t have policemen. Kid, we can make a fortune here!’

‘Maurice?’ said the boy, carefully.

‘Yes, kid?’

‘You don’t think what we’re doing is, you know … dishonest, do you?’

There was a pause before the voice said, ‘How do you mean, dishonest?’

‘Well … we take their money, Maurice.’ The coach rocked and bounced over a pot-hole.

‘All right,’ said the unseen Maurice, ‘but what you’ve got to ask yourself is: who do we take the money from, actually?’

‘Well … it’s generally the mayor or the city council or someone like that.’

‘Right! And that means it’s … what? I’ve told you this bit before.’

‘Er …’

‘It is gov-ern-ment money, kid,’ said Maurice patiently. ‘Say it? Gov-ern-ment money.’

‘Gov-ern-ment money,’ said the boy obediently.

‘Right! And what do governments do with money?’

‘Er, they …’

‘They pay soldiers,’ said Maurice. ‘They have wars. In fact, we’ve prob’ly stopped a lot of wars by taking the money and putting it where it can’t do any harm. They’d put up stachoos to us, if they thought about it.’

‘Some of those towns looked pretty poor, Maurice,’ said the kid doubtfully.

‘Hey, just the kind of places that don’t need wars, then.’

‘Dangerous Beans says it’s …’ The boy concentrated, and his lips moved before he said the word, as if he was trying out the pronunciation to himself, ‘… It’s un-eth-ickle.’

‘That’s right, Maurice,’ said the squeaky voice. ‘Dangerous Beans says we shouldn’t live by trickery.’

‘Listen, Peaches, trickery is what humans are all about,’ said the voice of Maurice. ‘They’re so keen on tricking one another all the time that they elect governments to do it for them. We give them value for money. They get a horrible plague of rats, they pay a rat piper, the rats all follow the kid out of town, hoppity-skip, end of plague, everyone’s happy that no one’s widdling in the flour any more, the government gets re-elected by a grateful population, general celebration all round. Money well spent, in my opinion.’

‘But there’s only a plague because we make them think there is,’ said the voice of Peaches.

‘Well, my dear, another thing all those little governments spend their money on is rat-catchers, see? I don’t know why I bother with the lot of you, I really don’t.’