'To tell you the truth, it comes to mine, too, sir,' said William.
'Now then, lad... when that kid nicked my first tosheroon, I didn't go around complaining, did I? I knew I'd got an eye for it, see? I carried on, and I found plenty more. And on my eighth birthday I paid a couple of trolls to seek out the man who'd pinched my first one and slap seven kinds of snot out of him. Did you know that?'
'No, Mr King.'
Harry King stared at William through the smoke. William felt that he was being turned over and examined, like something found in the trash.
'My youngest daughter, Hermione... she's getting married at the end of next week,' said Harry. 'Big show. Temple of Offler. Choirs and everything. I'm inviting all the top nobs. Effie insisted. They won't come, o' course. Not for Piss Harry.'
The Times would have been there, though,' said William. 'With coloured pictures. Except we go out of business tomorrow.'
'Coloured, eh? You get someone to paint 'em in, do you?'
'No. We've... got a special way,' said William, hoping against hope that Otto was serious. He wasn't just out on a limb here, he was dangerously out of the tree.
That'd be something to see,' said Harry. He took out his cigar, stared reflectively at the end and put it back in his mouth. Through the smoke he watched William carefully.
William felt the distinct unease of a well-educated man who has to confront the fact that the illiterate man watching him could probably out-think him three times over.
'Mr King, we really need that paper,' he said, to break the thoughtful silence.
There's something about you, Mr de Worde,' said the King. 'I buy and sell clerks when I need them, and you don't smell like a clerk to me. You've got the air about you of a man who'd scrabble through a ton o' shit to find a farthin', and I'm wonderin' why that is.'
'Look, Mr King, will you please sell us some paper at the old price?' said William.
'Couldn't do that. I told you. A deal's a deal. The Engravers've paid me,' said Harry shortly.
William opened his mouth but Goodmountain laid a hand on his arm. The King was clearly working his way to the end of a line of thought.
Harry went over to the window again and stared pensively at the yard with its steaming piles. Then...
'Oh, will you look at that,' he said, stepping back from the window in tremendous astonishment. 'See that cart at the other gate down there?'
They saw the cart.
'I must've told the lads a hundred times, don't leave a cart all laden up and ready to go right by an open gate like that. Someone'll nick it, I told 'em.'
William wondered who'd steal anything from the King of the Golden River, a man with all those red-hot compost heaps.
'That's the last quarter of the order for the Engravers' Guild,' said Harry, to the world in general. I'd have to repay 'em if it got half-inched right out of my yard. I'll have to tell the foreman. He's getting forgetful these days.'
'We should be leaving, William,' said Goodmountain, grabbing William's arm again.
'Why? We haven't--'
'However can we repay you, Mr King?' said the dwarf, dragging William towards the door.
The bridesmaids'll be wearing oh-de-nill, whatever that is,' said the King of the Golden River. 'Oh, and if I don't get eighty dollars from you by the end of the month you lads will be in deep' - the cigar did a double length of the mouth - 'trouble. Head downwards.'
Two minutes later the cart was creaking out of the yard, under the curiously uninterested eyes of the troll foreman.
'No, it's not stealing,' said Goodmountain emphatically, shaking the reins. 'The King pays the bastards back their money and we pay him the old price. So we're all happy
except for the Inquirer, and who cares about them?'
'I didn't like the bit about the deep pause trouble,' said William. 'Head downwards.'
'I'm shorter'n you so I lose out either way up,' said the dwarf.