When it had gotten warm enough to move, they'd gone down into Joachimsthal and confirmed that it was little more than that. In essence the mint was a brute with a great big hammer and a punch. He was supplied with blank disks of silver – these were not money – put the punch on each one and bashed it with the hammer, mashing the portrait of some important hag, and some incantations in Latin, into it – at which point it was money. Officials, supervisors, assayers, clerks, guards, and, in general, the usual crowd of parasitical gentlefolk clustered around the brute with the hammer, but like lice on an ox they could not conceal the simple nature of the beast. The simplicity of money-making had fascinated Jack into a stupor. 'Why should we ever leave this place? After all my wanderings I've found Heaven.'