'This is Adora Belle Dearheart, Hubert,' said Moist, in case the man was about to flee. 'She is my fiancee. She's a woman,' he added, in view of the worried look.
Adora Belle held out her hand and said, 'Hello, Hubert.'
Hubert stared.
'It's okay to shake hands, Hubert,' said Moist carefully. 'Hubert's an economist. That's like an alchemist, but less messy.'
'So you know how the money moves around, do you, Hubert?' said Adora Belle, shaking an unresisting hand.
At last the notion of speech dawned on Hubert. 'I welded one thousand and ninety-seven joints,' he said, 'and blew the Law of Diminishing Returns.'
'I shouldn't think anyone's ever done that before,' said Adora Belle.
Hubert brightened up. This was easy! 'We are not doing anything wrong, you know!' he said.
'I'm sure you aren't,' said Adora Belle, trying to pull her hand away.
'It can keep track of every dollar in the city, you know. The possibilities are endless! But, but, but, um, of course we're not upsetting things in any way!'
'I'm very glad to hear it, Hubert,' said Adora Belle, tugging harder.
'Of course we are having teething troubles! But everything is being done with immense care! Nothing has been lost because we've left a valve open or anything like that!'
'How intriguing!' said Adora Belle, bracing her free hand on Hubert's shoulder and wrenching the other one from his grasp.
'We have to go, Hubert,' said Moist. 'Keep up the good work, though. I'm very proud of you.'
'You are?' said Hubert. 'Mr Cosmo said I was insane, and wanted Auntie to sell the Glooper for scrap!'
'Typical hidebound, old-fashioned thinking,' said Moist. 'This is the Century of the Anchovy. The future belongs to men like you, who can tell us how everything works.'
'It does?' said Hubert.
'You mark my words,' said Moist, ushering Adora Belle firmly towards the distant exit.
When they had gone, Hubert sniffed the palm of his hand and shivered. 'They were nice people, weren't they?' he said.
'Yeth, marthter.'
Hubert looked up at the glittering, trickling pipes of the Glooper, faithfully mirroring in its ebbing and flowing the tides of money around the city. Just one blow could rattle the world. It was a terrible responsibility.
Igor joined him. They stood in a silence broken only by the sloshing of commerce.
'What shall I do, Igor?' said Hubert.
'In the Old Country we have a thaying,' Igor volunteered.
'A what?'
'A thaying. We thay: "If you don't want the monthter you don't pull the lever".'
'You don't think I've gone mad, do you, Igor?'
'Many great men have been conthidered mad, Mr Hubert. Even Dr Hanth Forvord wath called mad. But I put it to you: could a madman have created a revoluthionary living-brain ecthtractor?'
'Is Hubert quite... normal?' said Adora Belle, as they climbed the marble staircases towards dinner.
'By the standards of obsessive men who don't get out into the sunlight?' said Moist. 'Pretty normal, I'd say.'