In the twilight Moist saw a skinny figure walk up to Iron Girder. Dick Simnel shut down some hissing mechanism or other and the voice, the beautiful voice, was silenced.

‘Aye, she’s gradely all right! Come to see her for the last time before we head back to the city, have you? I can’t blame you. Everyone’s been wanting to see ’er, and I won’t lie, Mister Lipwig, it’s a wrench to leave her behind, for all she’s got good work to do ’ere. Iron Girder, she’s turned out to be a great lass. She was the power and she was ’arnessed, by gum. Oh, yes! ’arnessed by the sine and the cosine, and even the tangent had its little ’and in there somewhere! But not least she was tamed by my sliding rule.’

Dick grinned at Moist and continued. ‘People see Iron Girder and they’re gobsmacked by what can be done with mathematics! Don’t you go thinking she’ll burn you with living steam because she won’t. I’ve seen to it that she won’t. She’ll always be my favourite engine, Mister Lipwig, the queen of them all. She lives. How could anyone say she doesn’t?’

Moist looked around and saw that they were surrounded by goblins sitting quietly in a big circle like worshippers at the shrine, and once again Dick Simnel said, ‘Power, Mister Lipwig, power under control.’

Moist was seldom speechless, but this time all he could say was, ‘Good luck with that, Mister Simnel. Good luck.’

And the driver made his magic and the fire box opened and spilled dancing red shadows all around the footplate. And then came the rattle and jerk as Iron Girder took the strain and breathed steam for one more turn around the track as the goblins whooped and cackled and scrambled up her sides. And then came the first chuff and the second chuff and then the chuff bucket overflowed as Iron Girder escaped the pull of friction and gravity and flew along the rails.

Dick Simnel lit his pipe from a hot coal and said to the night, ‘Aye, gradely.’

When Drumknott entered the Oblong Office a few days later there was a familiarity to the silence, interrupted only by the scratch of a pencil as the austere figure behind the desk filled in a word on that day’s crossword. Drumknott coughed.

‘Yes?’

The face of the Patrician was forbidding. An eyebrow shifted quizzically, a characteristic known and feared by many. Drumknott smiled.

‘Many congratulations! You have that expression down to a T and the accent never faltered. And, of course, the frown! You’ve always been very good at the frown. Quite frankly, if he was standing next to you I wouldn’t know whom from which.’

Suddenly the face of the Patrician disappeared, leaving only Charlie the Clown in Lord Vetinari’s clothes, looking embarrassed.