What strange magic—? He corrected himself; what strange mechanics could have achieved this? There was the beast and they were loving it.
I’ll have to get familiar with these words, Harry thought as he left his office: ‘footplate’, ‘boiler’, ‘reciprocal’, ‘molybdenum disulphide’,[17] and all the tiresome but fascinating language of steam.
Having noticed that Harry was watching them, Dick Simnel allowed Iron Girder to slow down gently until, with an almost imperceptible bump, she came to a halt. Dick jumped off the footplate and strolled towards him, and Harry saw a triumphant look in his eye.
Harry said, ‘Well done, lad, but be careful, be very, very careful. Be careful of everything right now. I’ve been watching the faces of them people with their noses pressed up against my fence, their little faces all corrugated, as it were. They’re fascinated, and fascinated people spend money.
‘The most important thing in business is to work out who gets that cash and it’s like this, my boy, it’s a jungle out there and I’m more than a multi-millionaire, much more. I know that while happy handshakes are very pleasing and friendly, when it comes to business you can’t do without bloody lawyers because in this jungle I’m a gorilla! It’s best you tell me the name of yours and I’ll get my lawyer to get in touch so they can talk all lawyer-to-lawyer while totting up their dollars. I don’t want no one to say that Harry King fleeced the lad who tamed the steam.
‘For what it’s worth I’ll fund you up to a certain point, no doubt about that, because I think this engine of yours has real possibilities, huge possibilities. So now you’ve got my interest and by the time the papers find out about this you’ll have everyone’s interest.’
Dick shrugged and said, ‘Well, Sir Harry, it’s great that you’re giving me a chance, so anything you suggest’ll be okay by me.’
Harry King almost screamed, ‘No, no, no! I like you, I like you a lot, but business is, well, business is business!’ Harry’s face was now puce with anger. ‘You don’t go and tell anyone that you’ll take whatever they want to give you! You bargain, lad. Don’t get starry-eyed! You bargain. You bargain hard.’
There was silence and then the lad said, ‘Mister King, before I decided to come to Ankh-Morpork I talked about things with me mother, a very shrewd lady — she ’ad to be, what with me dad being somewhere out there in the ether, if you catch my drift. And she said if someone wants to do business in the big city, Dick, make out that you’re simple and see ’ow they treat you. If they treats you properly, simple as you are, then it’s likely you can trust them. And then you can show them how smart you really are. And well, sir, it seems to me you’re as straight as lunchtime. I’ll go and find a lawyer right now.’ He hesitated. ‘Er, where can I find a lawyer I can trust? I might not be as clever as I think I am.’
Sir Harry laughed heartily. ‘It’s a tough call, lad, and a question I’ve lately needed to ask myself, as it happens. My friend Mustrum Ridcully over at the University told me about one only yesterday: a lawyer so straight he could be used as a crowbar. Why not let your lads go on showing Iron Girder to the crowd, and come with me in my carriage, although it’s not a patch on the one you brought here, eh? Eh! Come on, lad, let’s go, shall we?’
At his office in the Lawyers’ Guild building, Harry King and Dick Simnel met Mr Thunderbolt, surprisingly large and, surprisingly, a troll. A troll with a voice like gently flowing lava.
‘You will wish to know my credentials, gentlemen. I am a member of the Ankh-Morpork Guild of Lawyers and served my articles here under Mister Slant,’ said Mr Thunderbolt. ‘As well as my Ankh-Morpork practice I am the only troll to have, moreover, accreditation as a lawyer in the realm of the Low King. Apropos of nothing, Sir Harry, I am also the nephew of Diamond King of Trolls, although, of course, I must add that the nature of troll families is such that the mere word “nephew” does not do the situation justice.’
The voice was the voice of a professor, but one who had chosen to speak in an echoing cave. The features were more or less like those of all trolls, unless you looked for the giveaway signs and recognized the careful masonry work, the richness of the plant life in the visible cavities and, not least, that elusive shine, and possibly shimmer, which caught the light so delicately; not boldly in your face, but irresistibly there.
‘And yes, I am diamond through and through and therefore I cannot tell lies for fear of shattering. Furthermore, I have no intention of trying to do so. It appears to me, gentlemen, from what you tell me, that the two of you are in accord, neither wishing to play unfairly and both of you wishing to act decently with one another and so, on this occasion, much as my Guild colleagues might disapprove, I suggest I act as mediator and lawyer for both of you. Troll justice is remarkably straightforward — I only wish that this could be the case everywhere else. However, should you fall out then I would not undertake work from either of you subsequently.’
Thunderbolt smiled and little sparkles flashed around the room like a firework display.
‘I will put together a short document which might, in other places, be called an agreement to agree. And I am the judge not on the side of you individually but on the side of you both. I am diamond and I cannot allow injustice to happen. I suggest, gentlemen, that you continue with your project, which seems to me remarkable, and leave the paperwork to me. I look forward to seeing you at the compound tomorrow.’
Harry and Dick were silent in the coach until Dick said, ‘Weren’t he nice? For a lawyer.’
By the time they got back to the compound the goblin Billy Slick, who had worked for Harry for many years, was in a tizzy — although he didn’t know that, not knowing the word existed — and he was at the gate waiting for them when the carriage drew up.
Frantically, he said, ‘I closed the gate, Sir Harry, but it looks like they’ll climb over anything to see this … this … this thing! I keep telling ’em we ain’t running no fun house here.’
The light was fading and yet still the eyes of the onlookers were following Iron Girder as she travelled around the track while Simnel’s team put her through her paces, throwing off sparks in the twilight like signals to the universe that steam was here to stay. And when most of the sightseers had reluctantly left to go home for their supper, some of Harry’s goblins slunk into the compound to see the marvel of the age. They did indeed slink, Harry thought, not exactly like a burglar, but simply because the average goblin carcass was born slinking, except that right now they were dancing around Iron Girder, and the lads had their work cut out to keep skinny little goblin fingers out of dangerous places.
Iron Girder sat and occasionally gave out a puff of steam or smoke while all the time, in the twilight, Harry heard tiny staccato voices interrogating the engineers: ‘What does this one do, mister?’, ‘What happens if I push this, mister?’, ‘I see, mister, that this one connects to the blastpipey armature.’
Harry and Dick joined Dave and Wally as they stood by Iron Girder answering the barrage of questions. To Harry’s surprise, instead of the complaints he was expecting to be issuing from the lads’ mouths, he saw they were smiling happily.
17
This black crystalline compound was widely used by troll women as an anti-ageing cream. Dick Simnel had been thorough in his research and it was, apparently, a very efficient lubricant.