'I'll come straight to the point, Mr Bent,' said Cosmo, sitting down. 'The directors do not like the, ha, direction things are going. I'm sure you don't, either.'
'I could wish for them to be otherwise, sir, yes.'
'He should have held a directors' meeting!'
'Yes, sir, but bank rules say he needn't do so for a week, I'm afraid.'
'He will ruin the bank!'
'We are in fact getting many new customers, sir.'
'You can't possibly like the man? Not you, Mr Bent?'
'He is easy to like, sir. But you know me, sir. I do not trust those who laugh too easily. The heart of a fool is in the house of mirth. He should not be in charge of your bank.'
'I like to think of it as our bank, Mr Bent,' said Cosmo generously, 'because, in a very real way, it is ours.'
'You are too kind, sir,' said Bent, staring down at the floorboards visible through the hole in the cheap oilcloth which was itself laid bare, in a very real way, by the bald patch in the carpet which, in a very real way, was his.
'You joined us quite young, I believe,' Cosmo went on. 'My father himself gave you a job as trainee clerk, didn't he?'
'That is correct, sir.'
'He was very... understanding, my father,' said Cosmo. 'And rightly so. No sense in dredging up the past.' He paused for a little while to let this sink in. Bent was intelligent, after all. No need to use a hammer when a feather would float down with as much effect.
'Perhaps you could find some way that will allow him to be removed from office without fuss or bloodshed? There must be something,' he prompted. 'No one just steps out of nowhere. But people know even less about his past than they do about, for the sake of argument, yours.'
Another little reminder. Bent's eye twitched. 'But Mr Fusspot will still be chairman,' he mumbled, while the rain rattled on the glass.
'Oh yes. But I'm sure he will then be looked after by someone who is, shall we say, better capable of translating his little barks along more traditional lines?'
'I see.'
'And now I must be going,' said Cosmo, standing up. 'I'm sure you have a lot of things to' - he looked around the barren room which showed no sign of real human occupation, no pictures, no books, no debris of living, and concluded - 'do?'
'I will go to sleep shortly,' said Mr Bent.
'Tell me, Mr Bent, how much do we pay you?' said Cosmo, glancing at the wardrobe.
'Forty-one dollars per month, sir,' said Bent.
'Ah, but of course you get wonderful job security.'
'So I had hitherto believed, sir.'
'I just wonder why you choose to live here?'
'I like the dullness, sir. It expects nothing of me.'
'Well, time to go,' said Cosmo, slightly faster than he really should. 'I'm sure you can be of help, Mr Bent. You have always been a great help. It would be such a shame if you could not be of help at this time.'
Bent stared at the floor. He was trembling.
'I speak for all of us when I say that we think of you as one of the family,' Cosmo went on. He rethought this sentence with reference to the peculiar charms of the Lavishes and added: 'but in a good way.' ing spree - Inadvisability of golem back-rubs - Giving away money - Some observations on the nature of trust - Mr Bent has a visitor - One of the Family
WHERE DO YOU TEST a bankable idea? Not in a bank, that was certain. You needed to test it where people paid far more attention to money, and juggled their finances in a world of constant risk where a split-second decision meant the difference between triumphant profit or ignominious loss. Generically it was known as the real world, but one of its proprietary names was Tenth Egg Street.
The Boffo Novelty and Joke Shop, in Tenth Egg Street, prop. J. Proust, was a haven for everyone who thought that fart powder was the last word in humour, which in many respects it is. It had caught Moist's eye, though, as a source of material for disguises and other useful things.