Posthumous Professor of Morbid Bibliomancy

This is Professor Goitre, who is kept in a jar in the Wizards' Pantry along with quite a few others who have opted for Early Death. Apparently it's a very good package and you can come back at a week's notice. It's just like a sabbatical, only longer, and wherever they go, you can hear the sound of cutlery, plateware and the rumbling rattle of the dessert trolley. Professor Goitre, in the hiatus between the main course and the dessert, is pleased to tell Moist von Lipwig that the two chandeliers, formerly in the Post Office, are now respectively in the Opera House and the Assassins' Guild. Moist decides to leave retrieving them for now as he knows he is dealing with dangerous people. Well, nobody wants a run-in with a short-tempered soprano. What Death thinks of the Early Death arrangement is unrecorded. Although His opinions on witches and wizards are there for inspection: he generally thinks they're the sort of smart-arses who keep arguing with Him all the time and play Hob with His otherwise meticulous schedule.