We’re back to the Disc with the surest sign of the industrial era: the steam engine. Dick Simnel, whose father died in a steam explosion when he was a baby, has learned mathematics and engineering, and figured out how to build a steam engine. Lord Vetinari goes to visit Lady Margolotta and they talk of progress in service of maintaining peace, namely that war is always coming eventually and how they must both do their utmost to prevent it while not standing in the way of new ideas. Young Magnus Magnusson gets beaten up by Bonk dwarves for looking too “Ankh-Morpork” and is rescued by Bashful Bashfulsson, who tells him not to looks so different next time he comes home to visit his granny. Harry King ruminates on his legacy and his wife, Effie, wishes that he could make their sizable fortune on something other than feces and urine. Moist and Adora Belle are married and very happy together, particularly because they are both so busy—she running the clacks system and he running the Post Office and the bank and the Mint. They employ a butler and his wife (Crossly and Mrs. Crossly) as well as a handyman named Crisp and a league of goblins who are now the primary employees of the clacks system.