‘Oh, Henrietta’s fine, Mister Drumknott, thank you for asking.’

‘And your little boy – Rupert? He must be out of school now, yes?’

Charlie laughed uncertainly and said, ‘Not so little, sir, he’s growing up like a weed and wants to be an engine driver.’

And Drumknott said, ‘Well now, Charlie, you already have enough money to put him through a trade anywhere in the city and give your daughter a dowry fit for a queen. And, of course, you’re still in the same house? Excellent!’

‘Oh, yessir, and thanks to you we’ve got much better bedrooms for the kids now and are saving up for a granny flat for when we can afford a granny. And Henrietta is overjoyed at the amount of money I’m bringing in these days and can even afford to get her hair cut at Mister Fornacite’s, just like the posh ladies do. She’s over the moon about it.’ He grunted and said, ‘I don’t earn that much from the puppet shows and clowning business.’

And now Drumknott beamed once again and said, ‘I’m sure his lordship will be glad to hear that your family is so happy and … alive. Long may it continue. I’ll be recommending to him that you could be promoted, as it were, to higher things. And now, since his lordship is expected back within the hour, if you don’t mind I’ll take you out through the back door. We really don’t want to see two Vetinaris in one place, do we?’

Charlie went almost white and said, ‘Oh, no sir, we don’t want that.’

‘Well, we shan’t, shall we,’ said Drumknott. ‘Off you go and I’ll lock the door behind you.’

When Charlie had disappeared, happy but in haste, Drumknott, after a moment’s thought, said to Dark Clerk Ishmael, ‘I’m sure his lordship will want to know that we’ve checked the location of this Mister Fornacite’s salon and the school that our friend’s children go to. Is it the same as last year?’

And the clerk replied, ‘Yes, it is, sir, I checked again the other day.’

‘Well done.’

As his lordship had pointed out: ‘If you take enough precautions, you never need to take precautions.’ It was just a matter of making sure that Charlie didn’t get … well, creative about his future.

Never had Moist been more happy to see his front door than when he got home and his wife opened it before he did, saying, ‘Oh, it’s you. Not dead? Good. How did it go?’

‘Pretty well. The golems were incredible. Sad that we’ve had to leave Iron Girder there until the bridge is repaired. Still, we’ve got so many of Harry’s golems and workers on it now it’s not going to be long before Vetinari can have a special train of his own, if he likes.’

‘To make sure relationships between Uberwald and Ankh-Morpork proceed in a … cordial fashion, no doubt,’ said his wife with a smile.