Disclaimer: Okay, hands up anyone who thinks I'm Terry Pratchett (Does hand count). No-one. Good.
Just re-read Making Money, and felt a little sorry for poor Drumknott and his stolen pencils.
Pencils
He opened the desk drawer, and felt around. Eventually his fingers found one lonely pencil.
One pencil. Drumknott scowled. One pencil left, and he'd bought a new box only a few weeks ago. And they were all his. The Patrician had his own, so he hadn't taken them, and none of the staff would dare take even one.
In fact, Drumknott knew exactly who was stealing his pencils. It was really very vexing. Moist von Lipwig, ex-crook, had recently been summoned to the palace for many last-minute appointments, which he was usually the last to hear about. First it was that University anniversary stamp (politics); then the problem with the new paper dollar (forgery); the golem stamp (foreign politics); the next problem with the paper dollar (forgery); the Librarian getting very annoyed over a new stamp, after people started sending him letters with the orangutan stamp on saying "Hello Mr. Monkey." (Librarian politics); that problem with the ten dollar note (Inadvisably applied magic. And forgery.) The list went on. And every meeting needed something signing, or noting down. In short, needed a pencil.
And he never gave the damn pencil back! Every time, Lipwig walked out of the palace with one of Drumknott's pencils. The man even took them when Drumknott tied a piece of cotton around one, and held the other end!
And he couldn't complain, because Vetinari liked it. He used it as a way of checking that Lipwig still had his criminal mind, and it hadn't been locked down by chains of gold-ish.
Drumknott sighed, and sent someone to buy him fifty new pencils. He wondered how long they'd last. Opening his copy of the Times, he read a short article about the latest banknote forgery, glanced at the new stamp; 'Send the experience of a home-baked dwarf croissant to your cherished children living far from the family mine!' and closely examined the political cartoon.
By the look of things, he mused, the new order should last around a month.