He'd forged halfpenny stamps, he really had. It broke your heart, it really did. Oh, he'd done higher values too, but what kind of person takes all that trouble for half a penny? Owlswick Jenkins had, and now he was in one of the condemned cells down in the Tanty, with a tew days to ponder on the nature of cruel fate before he was taken out to dance on air.

Been there, done that, Moist thought. It all went black — and then I got a whole new life. But I never thought being an upstanding citizen was going to be this bad.

' Er… thank you, Gladys,' he said to the figure looming genteelly over him.

'You Have An Appointment Now With Lord Vetinari,' said the golem.

'I'm sure I don't.'

'There Are Two Guards Outside Who Are Sure You Do, Mr Lipwig,' Gladys rumbled.

Oh, Moist thought. One of those appointments.

'And the time of this appointment would be right now, would it?'

'Yes, Mr Lipwig.'

Moist grabbed his trousers, and some relic of his decent upbringing made him hesitate. He looked at the mountain of blue cotton in front of him.

'Do you mind?' he said.

Gladys turned away.

She's half a ton of clay, Moist thought glumly, as he struggled into his clothes. And insanity is catching.

He finished dressing and hurried down the back stairs and out into the coach yard that had so recently threatened to be his penultimate resting place. The Quirm Shuttle was pulling out, but he leapt up beside the coachman, gave the man a nod, and rode in splendour down Widdershins Broadway until he jumped down outside the palace's main entrance.

It would be nice, he reflected as he ran up the steps, if his lordship would entertain the idea that an appointment was something made by more than one person. But he was a tyrant, after all. They had to have some fun.

Drumknott, the Patrician's secretary, was waiting by the door of the Oblong Office, and quickly ushered him into the seat in front of his lordship's desk.