It had been the wrong kind of cheery. It had been the cheery of the word 'pal' as in 'You lookin' at me, pal?' The Guild of Thieves paid a twenty-dollar bounty fee for a non-accredited thief brought in alive, and there were oh, so many ways of still being alive when you were dragged in and poured out on the floor.
He looked up. The window of the Postmaster General's apartment was right above him.
Oh... kay.
His hands and arms were numb and yet painful at the same time. He heard the rattle of the big freight elevator inside the building, the thud of a hatch being slapped back, the footsteps across the roof, felt the rope hit his arm.
'Grab it or drop,' said a voice as he flailed to grasp it. 'It's all the same in the long run.' There was laughter in the dark.
The men heaved hard at the rope. The figure dangled in the air, then kicked out and swung back. Glass shattered, just below the guttering, and the rope came up empty. The rescue party turned to one another.
'All right, you two, front and back doors right now!' said a coachman who was faster on the uptake. 'Head him off! Go down in the elevator! The rest of you, we'll squeeze him out, floor by floor!'
As they clattered back down the stairs and ran along the corridor a man in a dressing gown poked his head out of one of the rooms, stared at them in amazement, and then snapped: 'Who the hell are you lot? Go on, get after him!'
'Oh yeah? And who are you?' said an ostler, slowing down and glaring at him.
'He's Mr Moist von Lipwick, he is!' said a coachman at the back. 'He's the Postmaster General!'
'Someone came crashing through the window, landed right between - I mean, nearly landed on me!' shouted the man in the dressing gown. 'He ran off down the corridor! Ten dollars a man if you catch him! And it's Lipwig, actually!'
That would have re-started the stampede, but the ostler said, in a suspicious voice: 'Here, say the word "guv", will you?'
'What are you on about?' said the coachman.
'He doesn't half sound like that bloke,' said the ostler. 'And he's out of breath!'
'Are you stupid?' said the coachman. 'He's the Postmaster! He's got a bloody key! He's got all the keys! Why the hell would he want to break into his own Post Office?'
'I reckon we ought to take a look in that room,' said the ostler.
'Really? Well, I reckon what Mr Lipwig does to get out of breath in his own room is his own affair,' said the coachman, giving Moist a huge wink. 'An' I reckon ten dollars a man is running away from me 'cos of you being a tit. Sorry about this, sir,' he said to Lipwig, 'he's new and he ain't got no manners. We will now be leaving you, sir,' he added, touching where he thought his forelock was, 'with further apologies for any inconvenience which may have been caused. Now get cracking, you bastards!'
When they were out of sight Moist went back into his room and carefully bolted the door behind him.
Well, at least he had some skills. The slight hint that there was a woman in his room had definitely swung it. Anyway, he was the Postmaster General and he did have all the keys.
It was only an hour before dawn. He'd never get to sleep again. He might as well rise formally, and enhance a reputation for keenness.
They might have shot him right off the wall, he thought, as he sorted out a shirt. They could have left him to hang there and taken bets on how long it'd be before he lost his grip; that would be the Ankh-Morpork way. It was just his good luck that they'd decided to give him a righteous smack or two before posting him through the guild letter box. And luck came to those who left a space for it -
There was a heavy yet somehow still polite knock on the door.
Are You Decent, Mr Lipwig?' a voice boomed.
Regrettably yes, thought Moist, but said aloud: 'Come in, Gladys.'
The floorboards creaked and furniture rattled on the other side of the room as Gladys entered.
Gladys was a golem, a clay man (or, for the sake of not having an argument, a clay woman) who was nearly seven feet tall. She - well, with a name like Gladys 'it' was unthinkable and 'he' just didn't do the job - wore a very large blue dress.
Moist shook his head. The whole silly business had been a matter of etiquette, really. Miss Maccalariat, who ruled the Post Office counters with a rod of steel and lungs of brass, had objected to a male golem cleaning the ladies' privies. How Miss Maccalariat had arrived at the conclusion that they were male by nature rather than custom was a fascinating mystery, but there was no profit in arguing with such as her.
And thus, with the addition of one extremely large cotton print dress, a golem became female enough for Miss Maccalariat. The odd thing was that Gladys was female now, somehow. It wasn't just the dress. She tended to spend time around the counter girls, who seemed to accept her into the sisterhood despite the fact that she weighed half a ton. They even passed on their fashion magazines to her, although it was hard to imagine what winter skincare tips would mean to someone a thousand years old with eyes that glowed like holes into a furnace.
And now she was asking him if he was decent. How would she tell?
She'd brought him a cup of tea and the City edition of the Times, still damp from the press. Both were placed, with care, on the table.