NOW SHINES MY STAR!

“On our way, we shall be picking up a locksmith.” “Who?” “Mr Brown.”

They nodded. Everyone - at least everyone in ‘the business’ and everyone in ‘the business’ knew what ‘the business’ was and if you didn’t know what ‘the business’ was you weren’t a businessman - knew Mr Brown.

His presence anywhere around a job gave it a certain kind of respectability. He was a neat, elderly man who’d invented most of the tools in his big leather bag. No matter what cunning you’d used to get into a place or overcome a small army or find the secret treasure room, sooner or later you sent for Mr Brown, who’d turn up with his leather bag and his little springy things and his little bottles of strange alchemy and his neat little boots. 

And he’d do nothing for ten minutes but look at the lock and then he’d select a piece of bent metal from a ring of several hundred almost identical pieces and under an hour later he’d be walking away with a neat ten per cent of the takings. Of course, you didn’t have to use Mr Brown’s services. You could always opt to spend the rest of your life looking at a locked door.

- Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

“Killer Vacation”