The troll smiled and said, ‘Or, indeed, as me – and I am diamond.’

Business for the Hygienic Railway Company was indeed booming, and the workforce ever expanding. The goblins from the Quirmian maquis had passed news back to their friends about the opportunities in the Big Wahoonie, which they seized with alacrity. And once Dick’s announcement of his Railway Academy had been splashed across the papers, in the wake of the Effing Forest incident, there were queues of people every day wanting to be taken on as apprentices. Simnel was heavy on the lads he accepted, telling them they had got to let the iron into their soul. And it was not unknown for him to kick someone straight out again if he felt they weren’t up to scratch.

Returning from another trip to review progress on the Quirm line, Moist paused to take in the latest changes to the compound. There were the apprentices … engrossed in their own little mechanical world with Wally and Dave tutoring them and making sure they had got their caps sufficiently flat. Moist watched them in their blissful mechanical dream and he could not help but notice that they were surrounded by goblins, most definitely paying attention, seriously so, as if their lives depended upon it, and gathering up any discarded greasy rags, which to goblins were like haute couture, and the mark of a real swell back in the burrows. And near by the train spotters were comparing numbers. And there was Mr Simnel, equally engrossed in his latest contraption.

As Moist crossed the compound towards him, Mr Simnel, with his greasy hat and his grubby shirt, the sleeves of which were rolled up to his elbows, wiped his grinning face with a rag, leaving a greasy smear on the grease.

‘Mister Lipwig! Grand to see you! I have something to show you! We brought this beauty down from Sto Lat yesterday and built it last night!’ He was shouting even louder than normal. ‘Essential equipment! It’s my design! I built it and I call it t’turning table!’

Moist almost had to put his hands over his ears as the engineer stepped closer. It’s because he works with the trains all day, he thought, he has to be heard among all the hissing and clanking, but I wonder how he talks to his Emily?

And as for the turning table, it was, well, it was a table and it turned: a huge metal table with a pair of rails running across the centre, which was turned around by means of a large handle attached to a ratchet mechanism being wound by a troll with a look of intense concentration. Moist watched while Dick gave his demonstration.

‘Great! That’s brilliant, Dick, but … for the sake of the hard of thinking, what in hell’s name is it for?’