The Hard Sell
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Moist Von Lipwig had been many things in his life. A thief, a sneak, a very well thought of citizen of Ankh Morpork who in great times of your need was willing to diverse you of all your monetary gain, and even, including at one extremely strange time in his life that may or may not have involved trolls and troll alcohol, a pot plant. However, being stared down by three witches with various amounts of glare in a bank – his bank, had not been one of them until today. Mostly because he didn't own a bank.
He stared at the tallest one.
"Good morning," he said carefully.
"Well it's not anymore," said the one with a face like a brick wall.
"It was your idea, Esme," said the one with something really smelly hanging around her neck. Moist thought it might have been a cat, but no god would have been cruel enough to do that to a cat, though, considering the kind of gods Ankh Morphork attracted, anything was possible if there were enough people to approve of the idea.
"I just wanted to see the gallery," muttered the one with a large wilted hat and a mouth like it was caught between a dwarf and a troll, or alternatively, Vetinari and mimes. She was all chin and lots of curls and somewhere under all that, Moist assumed there was a face.
"So," he said brightly, "How can I help you, ladies?"
"I wants to know," and hard blue eyes narrowed at him and Moist felt distinctly that she was looking not only through him, but over him and under him too. And Moist had a good inner self, and even a second one and a third one for really persistent people who always looked for the inner self that deserved to be beaten across the head, but she just… kept looking. It was unnerving.
This was going to be a hard sell.
"-why we gots to give you our money."
…a really hard sell.
"Because I can keeps my own quiet easily," she said levelly.
"In me knickers," said the one with the smelly thing on her shoulder. Her face wrinkled into a leer. Somehow, Moist thought the cat was leering too, that is, if cats leered and if that was actually a cat.
"Gytha."
Moist disliked witches on the whole. Not because he had anything personal against them; in fact, they had a mutually beneficial relationship by never having one at all, but he disliked them because witches on the whole were smart. Not clever, because they didn't hold with cleverness, but because witches knew which way was up and therefore were harder to fool. Normally Moist would have taken this as a challenge, but the look in the tall witch's eyes had already told him that not only did she not hold with cleverness, she also didn't hold with him, the bank or men in funny hats in general.
Oh well. He had to have a try anyway, wouldn't he? He wouldn't be Moist Von Lipwig otherwise. Though, technically, he wouldn't be Moist Von Lipwig anyway if Vetinari hadn't brought up angels. He'd have been dead.
Moist didn't rub his hands because he didn't give away such easy tells, but he tipped his hat at the witches. "I'm sure we can discuss this further," he said with a charming smile. "Come and take a seat in my office. I'm sure we've got some tea and biscuits around…"