'A banker! Me?'

'Yes, Mr Lipwig.'

'But I don't know anything about running a bank!'

'Good. No preconceived ideas.'

'I've robbed banks!'

'Capital! Just reverse your thinking,' said Lord Vetinari, beaming. 'The money should be on the inside!

The coach slowed to a stop.

'What is this about?' said Moist. 'Actually about?'

'When you took over the Post Office, Mr Lipwig, it was a disgrace. Now it works quite efficiently. Efficiently enough to be boring, in fact. Why, a young man might find himself climbing by night, perhaps, or picking locks for the thrill of it, or even flirting with Extreme Sneezing. How are you finding the lockpicks, by the way?'

It had been a poky little shop in a poky alley, and there had been no one in there but the little old lady who'd sold him the picks. He still didn't know exactly why he'd bought them. They were only geographically illegal, but it gave him a little thrill to know they were in his jacket. It was sad, like those businessmen who come to work in serious clothes but wear colourful ties in a mad despairing attempt to show there is a free spirit in there somewhere.

Oh gods, I've become one of them. But at least he doesn't seem to know about the blackjack.

'I'm not too bad,' he said.

'And the blackjack? You, who have never struck another man? You clamber on rooftops and pick the locks on your own desks. You're like a caged animal, dreaming of the jungle! I'd like to give you what you long for. I'd like to throw you to the lions.'

Moist began to protest, but Vetinari held up a hand.

'You took our joke of a Post Office, Mr Lipwig, and made it a solemn undertaking. But the banks of Ankh-Morpork, sir, are very serious indeed. They are serious donkeys, Mr Lipwig. There have been too many failures. They're stuck in the mud, they live in the past, they are hypnotized by class and wealth, they think gold is important.'