But now the funeral was over and the Lavishes were doing what they always did after funerals, which was talk about The Money.

You couldn't sit Lavishes around a table. Cosmo had set out small tables in a pattern that represented to the best of his knowledge the current state of the alliances and minor fratricidal wars, but there was a lot of shifting and scraping and threats of legal action before people settled down. Behind them the alert ranks of their lawyers paid careful attention, earning a total of a dollar every four seconds.

Apparently the only relative that Vetinari had was an aunt, Cosmo mused. That man had all the luck. When he was Vetinari, there would have to be a cull.

'Ladies and gentlemen,' he said, when the hissing and name-calling had died away, 'I am so glad to see so many of you here today—'

'Liar!'

'Especially you, Pucci,' said Cosmo, smiling at his sister. Vetinari didn't have a sister like Pucci, either. No one did, Cosmo was prepared to bet. She was a fiend in vaguely human shape.

'You've still got something wrong with your eyebrow, you know,' said Pucci. She had a table by herself, a voice like a saw encountering a nail with a slight additional touch of foghorn, and was always referred to as 'a society beauty', which showed just how rich the Lavishes were. Cut in half, she might make two society beauties but not, at that point, very beautiful ones. While it was said that men she had spurned jumped off bridges in despair, the only person known to have said this was Pucci herself.

'I'm sure you all know—' Cosmo began.

'Thanks to your side of the family's total incompetence you have lost us the bank!'

That came from the far corner of the room, but it triggered a rising chorus of complaint.

'We are all Lavishes here, Josephine,' he said sternly. 'Some of us were even born a Lavish.'

That didn't work. It ought to have done. It would have done for Vetinari, Cosmo was sure. But for Cosmo, it only upset people. The growls of objection got louder.

'Some of us make a better job of it!' snapped Josephine. She was wearing a necklace of emeralds, and they reflected a greenish light on her face. Cosmo was impressed.

Whenever possible, Lavishes married distant cousins, but it wasn't uncommon for a few, every generation, to marry outside, in order to avoid the whole 'three thumbs' situation. The women found handsome husbands who did what they were told, while the men found wives who, amazingly, were remarkably good at picking up the petulance and shaved-monkey touchiness that was the mark of a true Lavish.

Josephine sat down with a poisonous look of satisfaction at the muttered chorus of agreement. She sprang up again, for an encore: 'And what do you intend to do about this unforgivable situation? Your branch has put a mountebank in control of our bank! Again!'

Pucci span in her seat. 'How dare you say that about Father!'

'And how dare you say that about Mr Fusspot!' said Cosmo.

It would have worked for Vetinari, he knew it. It would have made Josephine look silly and raised Cosmo's stock in the room. It would have worked for Vetinari, who could raise his eyebrow like a visual rim shot.

'What? What? What are you talking about?' said Josephine. 'Don't be so silly, child! I'm talking about this Lipwig creature! He's a postman, for goodness' sake! Why haven't you offered him money?'

'I have,' said Cosmo, and added for his inner ear: III remember 'child', you whey-faced old boot. When I am a master of the eyebrow we shall see what you say then!

'And?'

'I believe he is not interested in money.'

'Nonsense!'

'What about the little doggie?' said an elderly voice. 'What happens if it passes away, gods forbid?'

'The bank comes back to us, Aunt Careful,' said Cosmo, to a very small old lady in black lace, who was engaged in some embroidery.

'No matter how the little doggie dies?' said Aunt Carefulness Lavish, paying fastidious attention to her needlework. 'There is always the option of poison, I am sure.'

With an audible whoosh Aunt Careful's lawyer rose to his feet and said, 'My client wishes to make it clear that she is merely referring to the general availability of noxious substances in general and this is not intended to be and in no way should be taken as an espousal of any illegal course of action.'

He sat down again, fee earned.[4]

'Regrettably, the Watch would be all over us like cheap chain mail,' said Cosmo.

'Watchmen in our bank? Shut the door on them!'

'Times have moved on, Auntie. We can't do that any more.'

'When your great-grandfather pushed his brother over the balcony the Watch even took the body away for five shillings and a pint of ale all round!'

'Yes, Auntie. Lord Vetinari is the Patrician now.'

'And he'd allow watchmen to clump around in our bank?'

'Without a doubt, Auntie.'

'Then he is no gentleman,' the aunt observed sadly.

'He lets vampires and werewolves into the Watch,' said Miss Tarantella Lavish. 'It's disgusting, the way they're allowed to walk the streets like real people.'

— and something went ping! in Cosmo's memory.

'He's just like real people', said the voice of his father.

'This is your problem, Cosmo Lavish!' said Josephine, unwilling to see targets switched. 'It was your wretched father who—'

'Shut up,' said Cosmo calmly. 'Shut up. And those emeralds do not suit you, by the way.'

This was unusual. Lavishes might sue and conspire and belittle and slander, but there was such a thing as good manners, after all.

In Cosmo's head there was another ping, and his father saying: 'And he's managed to hide what he is so well, and at great pain. What he was is probably not even there any more. But you'd better know in case he starts acting funny. . .'

'My father rebuilt the business of the bank,' said Cosmo, the voice still ringing in his head as Josephine drew breath for a tirade, 'and you all let him. Yes, you let him. You didn't care what he did so long as the bank was available to you for all your little schemes, the ones we so carefully conceal and don't talk about. He bought out all the small shareholders, and you didn't mind so long as you got your dividends. It was just a shame that his choice in chums was flawed—'

'Not as bad as his choice of that upstart music-hall girl!' said Josephine.

'—although his choice in his last wife, however, was not,' Cosmo went on. 'Topsy was cunning, devious, ruthless and merciless. The problem I have is simply that she was better at all this than you are. And now I must ask you all to leave. I am going to get our bank back. Do see yourselves out.'

He got up, walked to the door, shut it carefully behind him, and then ran like hell for his study, where he stood with his back to the door and gloated, an exercise he had just the face for.

Good old Dad! Of course, that little talk had been back when he was ten and didn't have his own lawyer yet, and hadn't fully embraced the Lavish tradition of prickly and guarded involvement. But Dad had been sensible. He hadn't just been giving Cosmo advice, he'd been giving him ammunition which could be used against the others. What else was a father for?

Mr Bent! Was… not just Mr Bent. He was something out of nightmares. At the time the revelation had scared young Cosmo, and later on he'd been ready to sue his father over those sleepless nights, in the very best Lavish tradition, but he'd hesitated and that was just as well. It would all have come out in court and he'd have thrown away a wonderful gift.

So the Lipwig fellow thought he controlled the bank, did he? Well, you couldn't run the bank without Mavolio Bent, and by this time tomorrow he, Cosmo Lavish, would own Mr Bent. Hmm, yes… leave it perhaps a little longer. Another day of dealing with Lipwig's bizarre recklessness would wind up poor Mr Bent to the point where Cranberry's special powers of persuasion would hardly be required. Oh, yes.