Moist stood his ground. ‘Dick says there’s iron everywhere, Harry, but it needs digging out and then it’s the making of the steel that uses up the money,’ he put in hastily, before Harry could throw anyone down the stairs.

‘You’ve got to put the gold in to get t’steel out, Harry,’ said Simnel calmly. ‘We’ve been getting a good deal from the lads down at the smelters, but it’s twelve hundred miles to Uberwald, and that’s a lot of steel.’

‘Harry,’ Moist said patiently. ‘I know very well that when you and your lady first married you used to cut the matches in half to make them last longer. But you are not that man any more. You can afford this.’

They watched Harry’s face. In truth, Moist knew Harry had kicked his way up from the gutter and was proud of it, but he had made his money cheaply – since minions, on the whole, don’t incur much of an overhead – and looked at every suggestion that he should pay for anything as evidence that something was wrong in the world.

Dick Simnel had got the measure of the man and said, ‘If I was you, sir, I’d look at my money box and buy as much steel as I possibly could while I can, not making a big fuss about it, otherwise it’ll suddenly get more expensive, if you know what I mean. Supply and demand.’

Harry still looked as if he thought people were trying to get something of a move on him, which was his ground state of being, and Moist thought, well, what does Harry spend his mountains of money on?

And so he plunged on. ‘Go on, Harry, as a customer in good standing, the Royal Bank’ll definitely give you a loan, if indeed you ever need one. Though frankly, I know your balance is more than enough to get rails all the way to the moon and back and that’s including a fleet of locomotives as well.’

There was a rumble from Mr Thunderbolt. ‘Of course, Sir Harry, you could sell shares: that means you share some of the outlays but, alas, you also have to share some of the dividends. It’s up to you.’

Moist saw his cue right there and said, ‘You see, Harry, everybody who buys your railway shares would then be dead keen on their railway and on your side. It’s what the trolls call a no-brain. When the smoke is making you rich, it’s your smoke and you don’t complain about it. And,’ Moist took a deep breath, ‘if you share the risks you can afford to build houses for the railway workers, too. That way they’ll live close to the railway, right alongside it, so they’ll always be ready—’

‘I don’t need any telling on that score, Mister Lipwig. The lads that work for me on the conveyor belts all live on the doorstep. Difference is they built their own.’