Making Money

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.

‘A conundrum indeed, Berenice,’ said Cribbins, following her. ‘The holy texts don’t mention it, but I have no doubt that …’ His forehead creased. Cribbins was seldom troubled by religious questions, and this one was pretty difficult. He rose to it like a born theologian. ‘I have no doubt that they will be found shtill jogging along, but possibly in the opposite direction.’

‘Back towards the Last?’ she said, looking worried.

‘Ah, dear lady, remember that they will by then be the First.’

‘Oh yes, I hadn’t thought of it like that. That’s the only way it could work, unless of course the original First would wait for the Last to catch up.’

‘That would be a miracle indeed,’ said Cribbins, watching her lock the door behind them. The evening air was sharp and unwelcoming after the warmth of the newspaper room, and made the prospect of another night in the flop-house in Monkey Street seem doubly unappealing. He needed his own miracle right now, and he had a feeling that one was shaping up right here.

‘I expect it’s very hard for you, reverend, finding a place to stay,’ Ms Houser said. He couldn’t make out her expression in the gloom.

‘Oh, I have faith, shister,’ he said. ‘If Om does not come, He schends— Arrg!’ And at a time like this! A spring had slipped! It was a judgement!

But agonizing as it was, it might yet have its blessing. Ms Houser was bearing down on him with the look of a woman determined to do good at any price. Oh, it hurt, though; it had snapped right across his tongue.

A voice behind him said: ‘Excuse me, I couldn’t help noticing … Are you Mr Cribbins, by any chance?’

Enraged by the pain in his mouth, Cribbins turned with murder in his heart, but ‘That’s Reverend Cribbins, thank you,’ said Ms Houser, and his fists unclenched.

‘’Shme,’ he muttered.

A pale young man in an old-fashioned clerk’s robe was staring at him. ‘My name is Heretofore,’ he said, ‘and if you are Cribbins I know a rich man who wants to meet you. It could be your lucky day.’

‘Ish zat sho?’ muttered Cribbins. ‘And if zat man ish called Coshmo, I want to meet him. It could be hish lucky day, too. Ain’t we the lucky onesh!’

‘You must have had a moment of dread,’ said Moist, as they relaxed in the marble-floored sitting room. At least Adora Belle relaxed. Moist was searching.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said as he opened a cupboard.

‘Golems weren’t built to be free. They don’t know how to handle … stuff.’

‘They’ll learn. And she wouldn’t have hurt the dog,’ said Adora Belle, watching him pace the room.

‘You weren’t sure. I heard the way you were talking to her. “Put down the ladle and turn around slowly” sort of thing.’ Moist pulled open a drawer.

‘Are you looking for something?’

‘Some bank keys. There should be a set of them somewhere around.’

Adora Belle joined in. It was that or argue about Gladys. Besides, the suite had a great many drawers and cupboards, and it was something to do while dinner was prepared.

‘What is this key for?’ she asked, after a mere few seconds. Moist turned. Adora Belle held up a silvery key on a ring.

‘No, there’ll be a lot more than that,’ said Moist. ‘Where did you find it, anyway?’

She pointed to the big desk. ‘I just touched the side here and— Oh, it didn’t do it this time …’

It took Moist more than a minute to find the trigger that slid the little drawer out. Shut, it disappeared seamlessly into the grain of the wood.

‘It must be for something important,’ he said, heading for another desk. ‘Maybe the rest of the keys were kept somewhere else. Just try it on anything. I’ve only been camping here, really. I don’t know what’s in half of these drawers.’