'It costs more than a penny to make a penny,' Moist murmured. 'Is it just me, or is that wrong?'

'But, you see, once you have made it, a penny keeps on being a penny,' said Mr Bent. 'That's the magic of it.'

'It is?' said Moist. 'Look, it's a copper disc. What do you expect it to become?'

'In the course of a year, just about everything,' said Mr Bent smoothly. 'It becomes some apples, part of a cart, a pair of shoelaces, some hay, an hour's occupancy of a theatre seat. It may even become a stamp and send a letter, Mr Lipwig. It might be spent three hundred times and yet — and this is the good part — it is still one penny, ready and willing to be spent again. It is not an apple, which will go bad. Its worth is fixed and stable. It is not consumed.' Mr Bent's eyes gleamed dangerously, and one of them twitched. 'And this is because it is ultimately worth a tiny fraction of the everlasting gold!'

'But it's just a lump of metal. If we used apples instead of coins, you could at least eat the apple,' said Moist.

'Yes, but you can only eat it once. A penny is, as it were, an everlasting apple.'

'Which you can't eat. And you can plant an apple tree.'

'You can use money to make more money,' said Bent.

'Yes, but how do you make more gold? The alchemists can't, the dwarfs hang on to what they've got, the Agateans won't let us have any. Why not go on the silver standard? They do that in BhangBhangduc.'

'I imagine they would, being foreign,' said Bent. 'But silver blackens. Gold is the one untarnishable metal.' And once again there was that tic: gold clearly had a tight hold on the man. 'Have you seen enough, Mr Lipwig?'

'Slightly too much for comfort, I think.'

'Then let us go and meet the chairman.'

Moist followed Bent's jerky walk up two flights of marble stairs and along a corridor. They halted in front of a pair of dark wooden doors and Mr Bent knocked, not once but with a sequence of taps that suggested a code. Then he pushed the door open, very carefully.

The chairman's office was large, and simply furnished with very expensive things. Bronze and brass were much in evidence. Probably the last remaining tree of some rare, exotic species had been hewn to make the chairman's desk, which was an object of desire and big enough to bury people in. It gleamed a deep, deep green, and spoke of power and probity. Moist assumed, as a matter of course, that it was lying.

There was a very small dog sitting in a brass in-tray, but it was only when Bent said 'Mr Lipwig, madam chairman' that Moist realized that the desk also had a human occupant. The head of a very small, very elderly, grey-haired woman was peering over the top of it at him. Resting on the desk on either side of her, gleaming silver steel in this world of gold-coloured things, were two loaded crossbows, fixed on little swivels. The lady's thin little hands were just drawing back from the stocks.

'Oh yes, how nice,' she trilled. 'I am Mrs Lavish. Do take a seat, Mr Lipwig.'

He did so, as much out of the current field of the bows as possible, and the dog leapt down from the desk and on to his lap with happy, scrotum-crushing enthusiasm.

It was the smallest and ugliest dog Moist had ever seen. It resembled those goldfish with the huge bulging eyes that look as though they are about to explode. Its nose, on the other hand, looked staved in. It wheezed, and its legs were so bandy that it must sometimes trip over its own feet.

'That's Mr Fusspot,' said the old woman. 'He doesn't normally take to people, Mr Lipwig. I am impressed.'

'Hello, Mr Fusspot,' said Moist. The dog gave a little yappy bark and then covered Moist's face in all that was best in dog slobber.

'He likes you, Mr Lipwig,' said Mrs Lavish approvingly. 'Can you guess at the breed?'

Moist had grown up with dogs and was pretty good at breeds, but with Mr Fusspot there was no place to start. He plumped for honesty. 'All of them?' he suggested.

Mrs Lavish laughed, and the laugh sounded at least sixty years younger than she was.

'Quite right! His mother was a spoon hound, very popular in royal palaces in the olden days. But she got out one night and there was an awful lot of barking and I fear Mr Fusspot is the son of many fathers, poor thing.'

Mr Fusspot turned two soulful eyes on Moist, and his expression began to become a little strained.

'Bent, Mr Fusspot is looking rather uncomfortable,' said Mrs Lavish. 'Please take him for his little walk in the garden, will you? I really don't think the young clerks give him enough time.'

A brief spell of thundery weather passed across the chief cashier's face, but he obediently took a red leash from a hook.

The little dog began to growl.

Bent also took down a pair of heavy leather gloves and deftly put them on. As the growling increased he picked up the dog very carefully and held it under one arm. Without uttering a word, he left the room.

'So you are the famous Postmaster General,' said Mrs Lavish. 'The man in the golden suit, no less. But not this morning, I note. Come here, dear boy. Let me look at you in the light.'

Moist advanced, and the old lady got awkwardly to her feet by means of a pair of ivory-handled walking sticks. Then she dropped one and grabbed Moist's chin. She stared intently at him, turning his head this way and that.

'Hmm,' she said, stepping back. 'It's as I thought…' The remaining walking stick caught Moist a whack across the back of the legs, scything him over like a straw. As he lay stunned on the thick carpet Mrs Lavish went on, triumphantly: 'You're a thief, a trickster, a charlie artful and all-round bunco artist! Admit it!'

'I'm not!' Moist protested weakly.

'Liar, too,' said Mrs Lavish cheerfully. 'And probably an impostor! Oh, don't waste that innocent look on me! I said you are a rogue, sir! I wouldn't trust you with a bucket of water if my knickers were on fire!'

Then she prodded Moist in the chest, hard. 'Well, are you going to lie there all day?' she snapped. 'Get up, man. I didn't say I didn't like you!'

Head spinning, Moist got cautiously to his feet.

'Give me your hand, Mr Lipwig,' said Mrs Lavish. 'Postmaster General? You are a work of art! Put it here!'

'What? Oh…' Moist grasped the old woman's hand. It was like shaking hands with cold parchment.

Mrs Lavish laughed. 'Ah, yes. Just like the forthright and reassuring grasp of my late husband. No honest man has a handshake as honest as that. How in the world has it taken you so long to find the financial sector?'

Moist looked around. They were alone, his calves were sore, and there was no fooling some people. What we have here, he told himself, is a Mkl Feisty Old Lady: turkey neck, embarrassing sense of humour, a gleeful pleasure in mild cruelty, direct way of speaking that flirts with rudeness and, more importantly, also flirts with flirting. Likes to think she's no 'lady'. Game for anything that doesn't carry the risk of falling over and with a look in her eye that says 'I can do what I like, because I am old. And I have a soft spot for rascals.' Old ladies like that were hard to fool, but there was no need to. He relaxed. Sometimes it was a sheer relief to drop the mask.

'I'm not an impostor, at least,' he said. 'Moist von Lipwig is my given name.'

'Yes, I can't imagine that you would have had any choice in the matter,' said Mrs Lavish, heading back to her seat. 'However, you seem to be fooling all of the people all of the time. Sit down, Mr Lipwig. I shall not bite.' This last was said with a look that transmitted: 'But give me half a bottle of gin and five minutes to find my teeth and we shall see!' She indicated a chair next to her.

'What? I thought I was being dismissed!' said Moist, playing along.