'I'm very glad to hear it, Hubert,' said Adora Belle, tugging harder.

'Of course we are having teething troubles! But everything is being done with immense care! Nothing has been lost because we've left a valve open or anything like that!'

'How intriguing!' said Adora Belle, bracing her free hand on Hubert's shoulder and wrenching the other one from his grasp.

'We have to go, Hubert,' said Moist. 'Keep up the good work, though. I'm very proud of you.'

'You are?' said Hubert. 'Mr Cosmo said I was insane, and wanted Auntie to sell the Glooper for scrap!'

'Typical hidebound, old-fashioned thinking,' said Moist. 'This is the Century of the Anchovy. The future belongs to men like you, who can tell us how everything works.'

'It does?' said Hubert.

'You mark my words,' said Moist, ushering Adora Belle firmly towards the distant exit.

When they had gone, Hubert sniffed the palm of his hand and shivered. 'They were nice people, weren't they?' he said.

'Yeth, marthter.'

Hubert looked up at the glittering, trickling pipes of the Glooper, faithfully mirroring in its ebbing and flowing the tides of money around the city. Just one blow could rattle the world. It was a terrible responsibility.

Igor joined him. They stood in a silence broken only by the sloshing of commerce.

'What shall I do, Igor?' said Hubert.

'In the Old Country we have a thaying,' Igor volunteered.

'A what?'

'A thaying. We thay: "If you don't want the monthter you don't pull the lever".'

'You don't think I've gone mad, do you, Igor?'

'Many great men have been conthidered mad, Mr Hubert. Even Dr Hanth Forvord wath called mad. But I put it to you: could a madman have created a revoluthionary living-brain ecthtractor?'

'Is Hubert quite… normal?' said Adora Belle, as they climbed the marble staircases towards dinner.

'By the standards of obsessive men who don't get out into the sunlight?' said Moist. 'Pretty normal, I'd say.'

'But he acted as if he'd never seen a woman before!'

'He's just not used to things that don't come with a manual,' said Moist.

'Hah,' said Adora Belle. 'Why is it that only men get like that?'

Earns a tiny wage working for golems, thought Moist. Puts up with graffiti and smashed windows because of golems. Camps out in wildernesses, argues with powerful men. All for golems. But he didn't say anything, because he'd read the manual.

They had reached the managerial floor. Adora Belle sniffed. 'Smell that? Isn't that just wonderful?' she said. 'Wouldn't it turn a rabbit into a carnivore?'

'Sheep's head,' said Moist gloomily.

'Only to make the broth,' said Adora Belle. 'All the soft wobbly bits get taken out first. Don't worry. You've just been put off by the old joke, that's all'

'What old joke?'

'Oh, come on! A boy goes into a butcher's shop and says: "Mum says can we please have a sheep's head and you're to leave the eyes in 'cos it's got to see us through the week." You don't get it? It's using "see" in the sense of "to last" and also in the sense of, well, to see…'

'I just think it's a bit unfair to the sheep, that's all.'

'Interesting,' said Adora Belle. 'You eat nice anonymous lumps of animals but think it's unfair to eat the other bits? You think the head goes off thinking: at least he didn't eat me? Strictly speaking, the more we eat of an animal the happier its species should be, since we wouldn't need to kill so many of them.'

Moist pushed open the double doors, and the air was full of wrongness again.

There was no Mr Fusspot. Normally he'd be waiting in his in-tray, ready to greet Moist with a big slobbery welcome. But the tray was empty.

The room seemed larger, too, and this was because it also contained no Gladys.

There was a little blue collar on the floor. The smell of cooking filled the air.

Moist ran down the passage to the kitchen where the golem was standing solemnly by the stove, watching the rattling lid of a very large pot. Grubby foam slid down and dripped on to the stove.

Gladys turned when she saw Moist. 'I Am Cooking Your Dinner, Mr Lipwig.'

The dark moppets of dread played their paranoid hopscotch across Moist's inner eyeballs.

'Could you just put the ladle down and step away from the pot, please?' said Adora Belle, suddenly beside him.

'I Am Cooking Mr Lipwig's Dinner,' said Gladys, with a touch of defiance. The scummy bubbles, it seemed to Moist, were getting bigger.

'Yes, and it looks as if it's nearly done,' said Adora Belle. 'So I Would Like To See It, Gladys.'

There was silence.

'Gladys?'

In one movement the golem handed her the ladle and stood back, half a ton of living clay moving as lightly and silently as smoke.

Cautiously, Adora Belle lifted the pot's lid and plunged the ladle into the seething mass.

Something scratched at Moist's boot. He looked down into the worried goldfish eyes of Mr Fusspot.

Then he looked back at what was rising out of the pot, and realized that it was at least thirty seconds since he'd last drawn breath.

Peggy came bustling in. 'Oh, there you are, you naughty boy!' she said, picking up the little dog. 'Would you believe it, he got all the way down to the cold room!' She looked around, brushing hair out of her eyes. 'Oh, Gladys, I did tell you to move it on to the cool plate when it started to thicken!'

Moist looked at the rising ladle, and in the flood of relief various awkward observations scrambled to be heard.

I've been in this job less than a week. The man I really depend on has run away screaming. I'm going to be exposed as a criminal. That's a sheep's head…

And — thank you for the thought, Aimsbury — it's wearing sunglasses.

Chapter 9

Cribbins fights his teeth — Theological advice — 'That's what I call entertainment' — Mr Fusspot's magic toy — Sir Joshua's books — Breaking in to banking — The minds of policemen — What about the gold? — Cribbins warms up — The return of Professor Flead, unfortunately — Moist counts his blessings — A werewolf revealed — Splot: it does you good — Time to pray

'I'M AFRAID I HAVE TO close the office now, reverend.' The voice of Ms Houser broke into Cribbins's dreams. 'We open up again at nine o'clock tomorrow,' it added, hopefully.

Cribbins opened his eyes. The warmth and the steady ticking of the clock had lulled him into a wonderful doze.

Ms Houser was standing there, not gloriously naked and pink as so recently featured in the reverie, but in a plain brown coat and an unsuitable hat with feathers in it.

Suddenly awake, he fumbled urgently in his pocket for his dentures, not trusting them with the custody of his mouth while he slept. He turned his head away in a flurry of unaccustomed embarrassment, as he fought to get them in, and then fought again to get them in and the right way up. They always fought back. In desperation he wrenched them out and banged them sharply on the arm of the chair once or twice to break their spirit before ramming them into his mouth once more.

'Wshg!' said Cribbins, and slapped the side of his face. 'Why, thank you, ma'am,' he said, dabbing at his mouth with a handkerchief. 'I am sorry about that, but I'm a martyr to them, I shwear.'

'I didn't like to disturb you,' Ms Houser went on, her horrified expression fading. 'I'm sure you needed your sleep.'

'Not sleeping, ma'am, but contemplating,' said Cribbins, standing up. 'Contemplating the fall of the unrighteous and the elevation of the godly. Is it not said that the last shall be first and the first shall be last?'

'You know, I've always been a bit worried about that,' said Ms Houser. 'I mean, what happens to the people who aren't first but aren't really last, either. You know… jogging along, doing their best?' She strolled towards the door in a manner which, not quite as subtly as she thought, invited him to accompany her.