They’d saved the city with gold more easily, at that point, than any hero could have managed with steel. But, in truth, it had not exactly been gold, or even the promise of gold, but more like the fatansy of gold, the fairly dream that the gold is there, at the end of the rainbow, and will continue to be there forever–provided, naturally, that you don’t go and look.

This is known as Finance. — Terry Pratchett