Mr Cropper sat down with bad grace and glanced at the first page.

Then he turned to the second page.

After a while he opened the desk drawer and pulled out a ruler, which he looked at thoughtfully.

'You've just read about Bananana Soup Surprise?' said Goatberger.

'Yes!'

'You wait till you get to Spotted Dick.'

'Well, my old granny used to make Spotted Dick–'

'Not to this recipe,' said Goatberger, with absolute certainty.

Cropper fumbled through the pages. 'Blimey! Do you think any of this stuff works?'

'Who cares? Go down to the Guild. right now and hire all the engravers that're free. Preferably elderly ones.'

'But I've still got the Grune, June, August and Spune predictions for next year's Almanack to–'

'Forget them. Use some old ones.'

'People'll notice.'

'They've never noticed before,' said Mr Goatberger. 'You know the drill. Astounding Rains of Curry in Klatch, Amazing Death of the Seriph of Ee, Plague of Wasps in Howondaland. This is a lot more important.'

He stared unseeing out of the window again.

'Considerably more important.'

And he dreamed the dream of all those who publish books, which was to have so much gold in your pockets that you would have to employ two people just to hold your trousers up.

The huge, be‑columned, gargoyle‑haunted face of Ankh­-Morpork's Opera House was there, in front of Agnes Nitt.

She stopped. At least, most of Agnes stopped. There was a lot of Agnes. It took some time for outlying regions to come to rest.

Well, this was it. At last. She could go in, or she could go away. It was what they called a life choice. She'd never had one of those before.

Finally, after standing still for long enough for a pigeon to consider the perching possibilities of her huge and rather sad black floppy hat, she climbed the steps.