((Amazing number of sideswipes crammed into these lines - reminds me
of the phrase we used to use in the BBS days - "throwing shuriken". -Udhay))
When he got back to the Post Office, Moist looked up the Lavish
family in Whom's Whom. They were indeed what was known as "old
money," which meant that it had been made so long ago that the black
deeds which had originally filled the coffers were now historically
irrelevant. Funny, that: a brigand for a father was something you
kept quiet about, but a slave-taking pirate for a
great-great-great-grandfather was something to boast of over the
port. Time turned the evil bastards into rogues, and rogue was a word
with a twinkle in its eye and nothing to be ashamed of.
They'd been rich for centuries. The key players in the current crop
of Lavishes, apart from Topsy, were her brother-in-law Marko Lavish
and his wife, Capricia Lavish, daughter of a famous trust fund. They
lived in Genua, as far away from other Lavishes as possible, which
was a very Lavish thing to do. Then there were Topsy's stepchildren,
the twins Cosmo and Pucci, who had, the story ran, been born with
their little hands around each other's throats, like true Lavishes.
There were also plenty more cousins, aunts, and genetic hangers-on,
all watching one another like cats. From what he'd heard, the family
business was traditionally banking, but the recent generations,
buoyed by a complex network of long-term investments and ancient
trust funds, had diversified into disinheriting and suing one
another, apparently with great enthusiasm and a commendable lack of
mercy. He recalled pictures of them in the Times' society pages,
getting in or out of sleek black coaches and not smiling very much,
in case the money escaped.
--Terry Pratchett, _Making Money_
