Going Postal Read Online Free PDF

said.
    “Bad Language Is Discouraged, Mr. Lipvig,” said Mr. Pump behind him.
    “Why? It’s written on the walls! Anyway, it was a description , Mr. Pump! Guano! There must be tons of the stuff!” Moist heard his own voice echo back from the distant walls. “When was this place last open?”
    “Twenty years ago, Postmaster!”
    Moist looked around.
    “Who said that?” he said. The voice seemed to have come from everywhere.
    There was the sound of shuffling and the click-click of a walking stick, and a bent, elderly figure appeared in the gray, dead, dusty air.
    “Groat, sir,” it wheezed. “Junior Postman Groat, sir. At your service, sir. One word from you, sir, and I will leap , sir, leap into action, sir.” The figure stopped to cough long and hard, making a noise like a wall being hit repeatedly with a bag of rocks. Moist saw that it had a beard of the short, bristled type, which suggested that its owner had been interrupted halfway through eating a hedgehog.
    “ Junior Postman Groat?” he said.
    “Indeedy, sir. The reason being, no one’s ever bin here long enough to promote me, sir. Should be Senior Postman Groat, sir,” the old man added meaningfully, and once again coughed volcanically.
    “ Ex-postman Groat” sounds more like it , Moist thought. Aloud he said, “And you work here, do you?”
    “Aye, sir, that we do, sir. It’s just me and the boy now, sir. He’s keen, sir. We keeps the place clean, sir. All according to Regulations.”
    Moist couldn’t stop staring. Mr. Groat wore a toupee. There may actually be a man somewhere on whom a toupee works, but whoever that man might be, Mr. Groat was not he. It was chestnut brown, the wrong size, the wrong shape, the wrong style, and, all in all, wrong.
    “Ah, I see you’re admirin’ my hair, sir,” said Groat proudly, as the toupee spun gently. “It’s all mine, you know, not a prunes.”
    “Er…prunes?” said Moist.
    “Sorry, sir, shouldn’t have used slang. Prunes as in ‘syrup of prunes,’ sir. Dimwell slang. * Syrup of prunes: wig. Not many men o’ my age got all their own hair, I expect that’s what you’re thinking. It’s clean living that does it, inside and out.”
    Moist looked around at the fetid air and the receding mounds of guano.
    “Well done,” he muttered. “Well, Mr. Groat, do I have an office? Or something?”
    For a moment, the visible face above the ragged beard was that of a rabbit in a headlight.
    “Oh, yes, sir, tech’n’ly ,” said the old man, quickly. “But we don’t go in there anymore, sir, oh no, ’cos of the floor. Very unsafe, sir. ’Cos of the floor. Could give way any minute, sir. We uses the staff locker room, sir. If you’d care to follow me, sir?”
    Moist nearly burst out laughing.
    “Fine,” he said. He turned to the golem. “Er…Mr. Pump?”
    “Yes, Mr. Lipvig?” said the golem.
    “Are you allowed to assist me in any way, or do you just wait around until it’s time to hit me on the head?”
    “There Is No Need For Hurtful Remarks, Sir. I Am Allowed To Render Appropriate Assistance.”
    “So could you clean out the pigeon shit and let a bit of light in?”
    “Certainly, Mr. Lipvig.”
    “You can ?”
    “A Golem Does Not Shy Away From Work, Mr. Lipvig. I Will Locate A Shovel.” Pump set off toward the distant counter, and the bearded junior postman panicked.
    “No!” he squeaked, lurching after the golem. “It’s really not a good idea to touch them heaps!”
    “Floors liable to collapse, Mr. Groat?” said Moist cheerfully.
    Groat looked from Moist to the golem, and back again. His mouth opened and shut as his brain sought for words. Then he sighed.
    “You’d better come down to the locker room, then. Step this way, gentlemen.”

    M OIST BECAME AWARE of the smell of Mr. Groat as he followed the old man. It wasn’t a bad smell, as such, just…odd. It was vaguely chemical, coupled with the eye-stinging aroma of every type of throat medicine you’ve ever