'Why only eleven dimensions?'

'We don't know,' said Ponder. 'It might be simply that more would be silly.'

'Can you take the foot out, please?' said Adora Belle, who was now brushing wisps of straw off a long package.

Ponder nodded, lifted out the relic with great care, and placed it gently on the bench behind them.

'What would have happened if you had drop—' Moist began.

'Wrong type of question, Mr Lipwig!'

Adora Belle put the bundle down beside the foot and unwrapped it with care. It contained a part of a golem's arm, two feet long.

'I knew it! The markings are the same!' she said. 'And there's a lot more on my piece. Can you translate it?'

'Me? No,' said Ponder. 'The Arts are not my field,' he added, in a way that suggested his was a pretty superior field with much better flowers in it. 'You need Professor Flead.'

'You mean the one who's dead?' said Moist.

'He's dead at the moment, but I'm sure that in the interests of discretion my colleague Dr Hicks can arrange for the professor to talk to you after lunch.'

'When he'll be less dead?' said Moist.

'When Dr Hicks has had lunch,' said Ponder patiently. 'The Professor will be pleased to receive visitors, er, especially Miss Dearheart. He is the world expert on Umnian. Every word has hundreds of meanings, I understand.'

'Can I take the Foot?' said Adora Belle.

'No,' said Ponder. 'It's ours.'

'That was the wrong type of answer,' said Adora Belle, picking up the Foot. 'On behalf of the Golem Trust, I am acquiring this golem. If you can prove ownership, we will pay you a fair price for it.'

'Would that it were that simple,' said Ponder, politely taking it from her, 'but, you see, if a Curiosity is taken away from the Cabinet Room for more than fourteen hours and fourteen seconds, the Cabinet stops working. Last time it took us three months to restart it. But you can drop in at any time to, er, check that we're not mistreating it.'

Moist laid a hand on Adora Belle's arm to forestall an Incident.

'She's very passionate about golems,' he said. 'The Trust digs them up all the time.'

'That's very commendable,' said Ponder. 'I'll talk to Dr Hicks. He's the head of the Department of Post-Mortem Communications.'

'Post-Mortem Com—' Moist began. 'Isn't that the same as necroman—'

'I said the Department of Post-Mortem Communications! said Ponder very firmly. 'I suggest you come back at three o'clock.'

'Did anything about that conversation strike you as normal?' said Moist, as they stepped out into the sunlight.

'Actually, I thought it went very well,' said Adora Belle.

'This wasn't how I imagined your homecoming,' said Moist. 'Why the rush? Is there some problem?'

'Look, we found four golems at the dig,' said Adora Belle.

'That's… good, yes?' said Moist.

'Yes! And you know how deep they were?'

'I couldn't guess.'

'Guess!'

'I don't know!' said Moist, bewildered at suddenly having to play 'What's My Depth?'. 'Two hundred feet down? That's more tha—'

'Half a mile underground.'

'Impossible! That's deeper than coal!'

'Keep it down, will you? Look, is there somewhere we can go and talk?'

'How about — the Royal Bank of Ankh-Morpork? There's a private dining room.'

And they'll let us eat there, will they?'

'Oh yes. The chairman is a great friend of mine,' said Moist.

'He is, is he?'

'He certainly is,' said Moist. 'Why, only this morning he licked my face!'

Adora Belle stopped and turned to stare at him. 'Really?' she said. 'Then it's just as well I got back when I did.'

Chapter 7

The Joy of Collops — Mr Bent goes out to lunch — The Dark Fine Arts — Amateur thespians, avoidance of embarrassment by — The Pen of Doom! — Professor Plead gets cosy — 'Lust comes in many varieties' — A Hero of Banking! — Cribbins's cup runneth over

THE SUN SHONE THROUGH the window of the bank's dining room on to a scene of perfect pleasure.

'You should sell tickets,' said Adora Belle dreamily, with her chin in her hands. 'People who are depressed would come here and go away cured.'

'It's certainly hard to watch it happening and be sad,' said Moist.

'It's the enthusiastic way he tries to turn his mouth inside out,' said Adora Belle.

There was a gulp from Mr Fusspot as the last of the sticky toffee pudding went down. He then turned the bowl over hopefully, in case there was any more. There never had been, but Mr Fusspot was not a dog to bow down to the laws of causality.

'So…' said Adora Belle, 'a mad old lady — all right, a very astute mad old lady — died and gave you her dog, which sort of wears this bank on its collar, and you've told everyone that gold is worth less than potatoes, and you broke a dastardly criminal out of your actual Death Row, he's in the cellar designing "banknotes" for you, you've upset the nastiest family in the city, people are queueing to join the bank because you make them laugh… what have I missed?'

'I think my secretary is, uh, getting sweet on me. Well, I say secretary, she's sort of assumed that she is.'

Some fiancees would have burst into tears or shouted. Adora Belle burst out laughing.

And she's a golem,' said Moist.

The laughter stopped. 'That's not possible. They don't work that way. Anyway, why should a golem think he's female? It's never happened before.'

'I bet there haven't been many emancipated golems before. Besides, why should he think he's male? And she bats her eyelashes at me… well, that's what she thinks she's doing, I think. The counter girls are behind this. Look, I'm serious. Trouble is, so is she.'

'I'll have a word with him… or, as you say, her.'

'Good. The other thing is, there's this man—'

Aimsbury poked his head around the door. He was in love.

'Would you like some more minced collops, miss?' he said, waggling his eyebrows as if to indicate that the joys of minced collops were a secret known only to a few.[6]

'You've still got more?' said Adora Belle, looking down at her plate. Not even Mr Fusspot could have cleaned it better, and she'd already cleaned it twice.

'Do you know what they are?' said Moist, who'd settled again for an omelette, made by Peggy.

'Do you?'

'No!'

'Nor do I. But my granny used to do them and they are one of my happiest childhood memories, thank you very much. Don't spoil it.' Adora Belle beamed at the delighted chef. 'Yes please, Aimsbury, just a little more, then. And could I just say that the flavour could really be brought out by just a touch of gar—'

'You are not eating, Mr Bent,' said Cosmo. 'Perhaps a little of this pheasant?'

The chief cashier looked around nervously, uneasy in this grand house full of art and servants. 'I… I want to make it clear that my loyalty to the bank is—'

'—beyond question, Mr Bent. Of course.' Cosmo pushed a silver tray towards him. 'Do eat something, now you have come all this way.'

'But you are hardly eating at all, Mr Cosmo. Just bread and water!'

'I find it helps me think. Now, what was it you wanted to—'

'They all like him, Mr Cosmo! He just talks to people and they like him! And he is really set on dismissing gold. Think of it, sir! Where would we find true worth? He says it's all about the city but that puts us at the mercy of politicians! It's trickery again!'

'A little brandy would do you good, I think,' said Cosmo. 'And what you say is solid gold truth, but where is our way forward?'

Bent hesitated. He did not like the Lavish family. They crawled over the bank like ivy, but at least they didn't try to change things and at least they believed in the gold. And they weren't silly.