“Where are all the staff?” asked Dan.

“They’re getting a last-minute pep talk from Mr. Grimly,” said Mr. St. John-Cholmondeley.

“Will we get to meet Mr. Grimly?” asked Jolly.

“Oh yes,” said Mr. St. John-Cholmondeley as they reached the dressing room. “You’ll be meeting him very soon, and he’s very anxious to meet you, too. Dying to meet you, you might even say.”

He smiled at the dwarfs the way an anteater might smile at a line of ants, but the dwarfs were too distracted by their elf outfits to notice. In the past they’d worn suits that were either so loose that a bookmark was needed to find the wearer, or so tight around the neck and waist that the wearer resembled a Christmas cracker. Those same suits were often made of the kind of material capable of conducting near-fatal levels of static electricity. Angry had stuck to a carpet on one job and had to be removed from it with wooden spoons; on another, Jolly had amused himself by building up a static charge and then poking Mumbles in the arm. Mumbles had received such a shock that his eyeballs had lit up.

These suits, on the other hand, were made of what felt like velvet. They were red with green trim, and while they might have had too many bells on for Jolly’s liking, they were still more than a step above normal.

“I’ll leave you to get dressed,” said Mr. St. John-Cholmondeley. “Please wait here when you’re done, and I’ll come and get you in—”

He tried to check his watch, then realized that it was no longer on his wrist.

“Excuse me, about the watch,” he said to Angry.

“What watch?”

“My watch.”

“Oh, that watch. I haven’t had a chance to look at it yet.”

“Would there be—? I mean, perhaps I should—?”

“Out with it, man, out with it,” said Angry. “We have elf work to do.”

“Well, I was wondering if I might perhaps have a receipt for it?”

When the dwarfs had finished laughing, which took a while, and Angry’s sides had stopped hurting, which took even longer, he finally managed to speak.

“Friends don’t need receipts,” said Angry.

“Are we friends?” asked Mr. St. John-Cholmondeley.

He sounded like he didn’t believe that this was the case and, if it was, he was wondering if it might be a good idea to put as much distance as possible between himself and his new “friend.”

“No, but we won’t ever be if we start looking for receipts from each other, will we?” asked Angry reasonably. “Friendship is about trust. Without trust, what do we have? Nothing.”

Angry put his left hand on his heart. There were tears in his eyes, although they might have been left over from his laughing fit. He put his other hand over Mr. St. John-Cholmondeley’s heart, and discreetly stole his pocket handkerchief.

“Well, since you put it like that,” said Mr. St. John-Cholmondeley as he was hustled from the room by the rest of the dwarfs.