But clamouring voices were telling him otherwise, with women trying to kiss him and holding up their offspring to do likewise, their husbands at the same time trying to shake his hand. Bafflement filled him up like smoke and now in front of him Adora Belle was looking at him with a funny little smile, such as only husbands know of.

When they were at last able to disembogue themselves of the crowd of happy parents and somewhat sticky children, Adora Belle still had her faint smile. ‘Well now, my dear, didn’t you once say that a life without danger is a life not worth living?’

Moist patted her hand and said, ‘Well, Spike, I married you, didn’t I?’

‘You couldn’t resist it, could you? It’s like a drug. You’re not happy unless someone is trying to kill you, or you’re in the centre of some other kind of drama, out of which, of course, the famous Moist von Lipwig will jump to safety at the very last moment. Is it a disease? Some kind of syndrome?’

Moist put on his meek face as only husbands and puppies can do and said, ‘Would you like me to stop? I will if you say so.’

There was silence until Adora Belle said, ‘You bastard, you know I can’t do that. If you stopped all of that you wouldn’t be Moist von Lipwig!’

He opened his mouth to protest just as the door opened and in came the press: William de Worde, editor of the Ankh-Morpork Times, followed by a porter and the ubiquitous Otto Chriek, the iconographer.

And, because Moist would never stop being Moist von Lipwig until he died, he smiled for the iconograph.

He reminded himself that this was only the start. All the rest would be along soon … but no matter, he had danced this fandango many times before, and so he maintained his best boy scout face and smiled at Mr de Worde, who started off by saying, ‘It appears that you are a hero again, Mister Lipwig. The driver and the stoker say that you ran faster than they could brake the train, picked up the children and jumped to safety just in time. Safety, at that precise moment, being under your Iron Girder. It was a miracle that you were there, wasn’t it?’

And so the dance began.

‘Not at all. We make a point of keeping an eye on the visitors at all times, of course. The children were outside the compound and, strictly speaking, the responsibility of their parents, but we’ll be putting up barriers along that stretch of the line immediately. You have to understand, people are flocking here. They seem to be irresistibly drawn by the novelty of live steam and speed.’

‘And a very dangerous novelty, would you not say, Mister Lipwig?’

‘Well now, Mister de Worde, everything old was once new and until explored was unfamiliar and dangerous, and then, as sure as night follows day they become just part of the scenery. Believe me, sir, that’ll happen here with the railway, too.’