Dodger

chapter 7

Dodger gets a close shave and becomes a hero (again!); Charlie gets a story – and a pair of ruined trousers



DODGER GOT BACK home and cleaned his face and hands while Solomon dished up the pork casserole; Solomon never said much about his time wandering around other countries, but he had certainly learned cookery on the journey, using spices and herbs that Dodger had never heard of.

Dodger had once asked Solomon why he had chosen to come to England, and Solomon had said, ‘Mmm, well, my dear, it seems to me that in the pinch most governments settle for shooting their people, but in England they have to ask permission first. Also, people don’t much mind what you’re doing as long as you’re not making too much noise. Mmm, I like that in this country.’ He had paused. ‘Once, when I was running away, as usual, I recall I met a rather hairy young man who told me that one day all that sort of thing would be swept away. We were hiding from Cossacks at the time. Occasionally, I mmm wonder what happened to young Karl . . .’

After the meal, which was delicious, Solomon and Dodger took Onan for his walk while the sun chased the horizon. It was an education to see Solomon locking up. The steps to the attic were narrow and rickety, just like the rest of this place and more or less like everywhere else, but it was when you got inside the attic you noticed the differences – the steel reinforcement around the door, the lock that looked simple but was very complicated indeed, having been made by Solomon himself. It would have taken a small army to break in, and Dodger himself even had to give a special knock before Solomon would open his door. He had asked Solomon why he went to all this trouble, and the old man had said ‘A lesson learned, my friend,’ and left it at that.

Now the streets looked a little like a fairyland under the honey glow of the evening sun, although, it must be said, only a little. But the sun seemed to heal the city of the argy-bargy and insults of the day, although there were still a few stalls, their owners lighting up flares as the light dwindled. All was calm and placid – but you knew that this was merely the shift change, because the night people followed the day people as, well, night follows day, although day, generally speaking, doesn’t pick night’s pockets.

The two of them had a beer from a bottle shop, sharing some of it with Onan while Dodger told Sol about Onan’s find in the sewers, and how he was planning to return to the Mayhews’ house to take Simplicity for a walk if possible the following day. Tired out, they finally headed back to the attic.

On the way Dodger noticed something quite brilliant shining through the filthy air and said, ‘What’s that, Sol? Is it an angel?’

It was said more in fun than anything else, but Solomon said, ‘Mmm, my experience of angels is somewhat limited, my boy, although I do believe they exist mmm; however, that particular angel, if I am not mistaken, is the planet Jupiter.’

Dodger squinted at it. ‘What’s that, then?’ Sol was always telling him stuff, but this was definitely something new.

‘You don’t know? Jupiter is a gigantic world, much bigger than the Earth.’

Dodger stared. ‘Do you mean that Jupiter is a world with people living on it?’

‘Mmm, I believe astronomical science is uncertain on that point mmm, but I assume there must be, because otherwise what would be the purpose of it? And if I may expand mmm, I will tell you that it is only one of a number of planets, which is to say worlds, moving around the sun.’

‘What? I thought the sun went round us. I mean, you can see it doing it, it stands to reason.’

Dodger was puzzled, and the careful voice of Solomon said, ‘Mmm, there is no doubt about it; the fact has definitely been established. It might also amuse you to know that the planet Jupiter has four moons, which travel around it just like our moon travels around the Earth.’

‘What do you mean? I thought you just said we go round the sun. So where does the moon go, then? Not round the sun too?’

‘Indeed, the moon circles the Earth and together they circle the sun, and indeed, mmm I can assure you about the moons of Jupiter, because I witnessed them through a telescope when I was in Holland.’

Dodger thought his head would explode. What a thing to find out. You get up, you walk around, you think you know everything there is to know, and suddenly it turns out that up in the sky everything is spinning around like a top. He felt almost indignant that he hadn’t been let into the secret before, and as they continued their walk, he listened hard as Solomon imparted as much astronomy as he could remember, a process which ended when Dodger said, ‘Can we get to any of these worlds?’

‘Mmm, very unlikely, they are a long way off.’

Dodger hesitated at this and said, ‘As far away as Bristol, maybe?’ He had heard of Bristol, apparently a big port but not as big as London.

Solomon sighed and said, ‘Alas, Dodger, it is much, much further away than Bristol; it is even much further away than Van Diemen’s Land, which I believe is the furthest you can go from here, it being on the other side of the world.’

It seemed to Dodger that everything he was told by Solomon stuck him like a silver pin, which didn’t hurt but filled him up with a sort of fuzz. He was beginning to see a world that stretched far beyond the tunnels beneath the streets – a world which was filled with things he didn’t know. Things he hadn’t even known he didn’t know until now. Things he realized with a jolt that he wanted to know about. He wondered too if maybe Simplicity might be even more interested in a man who knew this kind of thing – and he realized how much he was looking forward to seeing her again.

As they climbed the stairs, Solomon said, ‘If you were better at your letters, Dodger, I might interest you with the works of Sir Isaac Newton. Now let us get in, I am beginning to feel the damp. Mmm, you asked me about angels earlier, which are mmm messengers, so I suspect that means anything that brings you information may be considered to be an angel, my dear Dodger.’

‘I thought they were supposed to be messages from God?’

Solomon sighed as he began the business of unlocking his door. ‘Mmm, well now,’ he said, ‘if one day you gave up messing about in . . . well, mess, I might talk to you about the works of Spinoza, a philosopher who might broaden your mind – because, as far as I can see, there’s plenty of room – and pass on the nature of atheism, which most certainly questions the belief in God. As for me, some days I believe in God, and some days I do not.’

Then Dodger said, ‘Is that allowed?’

Solomon pushed the door open and then fussily began locking it up again behind them. ‘Dodger, you fail to understand the unique arrangements between Jewish people and God.’ He looked over at Onan, and added, ‘We are not always in agreement. You ask about angels. I speak of people. But who, for instance, are humans to sanction love to themselves alone? Where there is love there must mmm surely be a soul; yet curiously the Lord appears to believe that only humans have souls. I have explained to Him at length why He should mmm reconsider His stance on the matter, especially since, quite some time ago and before I met you, I was once confronted by an agitated gentleman possessed of a belief that all Jews should die, and also of a very large metal bar – a circumstance, may I add, that I was not mmm unfamiliar with in any case. Onan, who wasn’t much more than a puppy at that time, valiantly bit him in the unmentionables, thereby distracting him so that I could lay him low with a little trick that I had mmm learned in Paris. Who can say that action wasn’t done out of love, especially since in doing his very best to keep me from harm, Onan received for his selflessness the heavy blows that possibly made him the dog he is today. Mmm, and now I am rather tired, and I intend to put out the light.’

In the gloom Dodger rolled out his mattress; Onan watched him eagerly, in the hope that this might be one of those nights when it was chilly enough for Dodger to want a rather smelly dog sharing the thin mattress with him. His gaze held that unconditional love that only a dog can have – a dog with a soul, surely. But Onan was irredeemably a dog, which made his metaphysics considerably less complicated than those of humans, although sometimes he had a slight crisis in that he did have two gods to worship: the old one who smelled of soap, and the young one who smelled deliciously of just about everything else – at least when he got back from toshing, when to the senses of Onan Dodger was like a rainbow stuffed with kaleidoscopes. Now the hopeful dog riveted Dodger in the somewhat distressing sincerity of his love, and Dodger gave in; he always did.

The little room was silent and dark, apart from the slight snoring of Solomon, the grey light that managed to filter through the dirty window, and the smell of Onan, which in some peculiar way could almost be heard.

Outside in the street, one man watched, though he wished there were two men, because one man by himself could so easily be one dead man in the morning, if indeed the dead can find themselves dead, which was one of those philosophical conundrums that Solomon liked.

Up in the attic Dodger slept, and in his dreams he listened to the planets rolling overhead, interspersed occasionally with visions of the girl with golden hair.

He got up even earlier than Solomon the next morning; usually, if he had no plans for the day, he would lounge under the blanket until Onan licked his face, and you never wanted that to happen more than once.

Solomon said nothing, but Dodger noticed his little smile as he made the soup that would do duty for breakfast today. It was true that with Solomon’s magic and his contacts in Covent Garden, he could make mere gruel into a very elegant soup which Dodger believed could hardly be bettered anywhere, even by Marie Jo. And right now, Dodger put down his spoon.

‘That was very nice, thank you, Sol, but now I have to go.’

‘Mmm, not without shining your boots you are not. You are almost a gentleman now, at least in very poor lighting circumstances, and you are on a mission of mmm great importance, and so you must look your best, especially this afternoon when you go and see Miss Simplicity again. It can be difficult enough as it is to be a member of the chosen people in this city without being accused of sending a lad like you out without appropriate schmutter; people will be going back to throwing stones at the building again! Mind you don’t get that suit dirty – I want to see you back here later with not one mark on it. Now, your boots, boy.’ Solomon opened one of his strongboxes and handed Dodger a small metal container saying, ‘This is the proper boot polish, the real thing, even smells nice mmm, not like that dratted pig fat you use! You will expend some elbow grease shining your shonky boots until you can see your somewhat shonky face in them, which leads me on to the next thing that you are going to have to do, because you will see that your face needs almost as much work as your boots, since you didn’t mmm wash properly last night.’

Before Dodger could object Solomon continued, ‘And then you will realize that what you tend to think of as your hair is in fact something worse than mmm a Mongolian’s breeches, which are noisome things indeed, for the hair and bits of yak; indeed, I believe yak milk is what they use on their hair for special occasions. And so, since I don’t want to have to flee to yet another country mmm, after you have got yourself spruced up and looking like a Christian – because, my dear boy, the chances of you ever looking Jewish are thankfully small – I suggest you go and find yourself a proper barber for a haircut and a professional shave, not mmm from an old man whose hands get shaky when he’s tired.’

Dodger could shave himself in a lacklustre kind of way – even if, truthfully speaking, there wasn’t really all that much to shave yet – but he had never had a proper official haircut in his life. He would generally just do it himself, slicing off handfuls of hair with his knife, using Solomon as a kind of clever looking glass since the old boy just stood in front of him and told him whereabouts to slice next. This left something to be desired, possibly everything, and then he would have to have a go with the nit comb, which was uncomfortable to say the least, but it stopped the itching. It was great to see the little buggers dropping out onto the floor too, where he could jump up and down on them, knowing that for the next few days, at least, he was not going to be a nitwit.

He plunged his hand into his scalp now, a technique which Solomon called the German comb, and he had to admit that Sol was right – there was considerable room for improvement up there above his eyebrows. So he said, ‘I know where there’s a barbershop. I saw it the other day when I was in Fleet Street.’

He had enough time, he thought, as he applied the aforesaid elbow grease to his boots, along with the newfound boot polish. Solomon, standing over him to make certain he did it properly, said that he had bought the polish in Poland. There seemed to be no end to the countries that Solomon had visited and left at speed; it wouldn’t do to force him to go to another.

Dodger now remembered how Solomon had once taken a pepperbox pistol from one of his strongboxes. ‘What do you want that for?’ he had asked. And Solomon had said, ‘Once bitten, twice shy. But not that shy . . .’

When the boots were cleaned to the old man’s satisfaction – and he was not easily satisfied – Dodger sprinted in the general direction of Fleet Street. The streets were warming up, but he felt clean, even if there was a certain question mark over the shonky suit: it was making him itch like mad! It looked wonderful, and he wanted to be all nonchalant and wide as he walked up the street, but this was rather spoiled by the fact that every spare minute he was scratching somewhere about his person. It was an itch that wanted to move about, a playful itch, and it wanted to play hide and seek, at one point being in his boots and then turning up behind his ears, and just as quickly finding its way into his crotch, where on the whole it was rather difficult to do anything about in public. However, he decided that going faster might help and so he arrived, slightly breathless, at the barbershop he had noticed yesterday, and for the first time glanced at the little nameplate, which he eventually deciphered as: Mr Sweeney Todd, Barber-Surgeon.

He stepped inside the place, which appeared to be empty until he spotted a pale and rather nervous-looking man who was sitting in the barber’s chair and drinking a beverage of what turned out to be coffee. The barber sighed as he saw Dodger, dusted down his apron and said with brittle cheerfulness, ‘Good morning, sir! An excellent morning! What can I do for you today?’ At least, he tried to make this greeting cheerful, but you could see he didn’t have it in him. Never had Dodger seen such a woebegone face, apart from the time when Onan disgraced himself more than usual by eating Solomon’s dinner while the old man’s back was turned.

Mister Todd was definitely not a naturally cheerful personality; the gloom was apparently laminated to him and he was obviously more built by nature to be someone like an undertaker’s mute, whose job it was to follow the coffin of the deceased, looking respectably mournful but not saying a word because that would cost tuppence extra. It wouldn’t have been so bad if Mister Todd hadn’t tried to ignore it by pretending to be cheerful; it was like putting rouge on a skull. Dodger was fascinated. Perhaps all barbers are like this, he thought to himself. After all, I’m only asking for a shave and a haircut.

With some misgivings, he sat down in the chair and Sweeney swirled a white sheet over him in a way which would have been called theatrical if, indeed, Sweeney had really known how to do it first time. At this point, Dodger became aware of a dull, persistent smell coming from somewhere. It had the flavour of decay and it mingled with the smells of soap and jars of various lotions. He thought, Well, this isn’t a butcher’s shop, so I just bet his landlord has gone and knocked a way from the privy to the sewers – I really wish they didn’t do that sort of thing.

A lot of the sheet ended up round Dodger’s neck, to be whisked aside by the luckless Sweeney with lots of apologies and assurances that it wouldn’t happen again. It did. Twice. Next time it fell around Dodger in a way that both of them could live with, and the sweating Sweeney turned his attention to the job in hand. At some time, somebody must have told Mister Todd that a barber, in addition to tonsorial prowess, should have memorized practically a library of jokes, anecdotes and miscellaneous rib-ticklers, occasionally including – should the gentleman in the chair be of the right age or nature – ones that might include some daring remarks about young ladies. However, the person that had given him this advice had simply not calculated on Sweeney’s terrible lack of anything that could be called bonhomie, cheerfulness, ribaldry or even a simple sense of humour.

Nevertheless, Dodger noticed he did try. Oh my, how he tried, stropping his razor while messing up punch lines and, horror of horrors, laughing at the joke which he himself had so clumsily executed. But at last the razor was sharp enough for Sweeney and then there was the matter of the shaving foam, which the man attended to just as soon as he had laid the razor down so that its gleaming edge faced north, all the better to maintain its sharpness.

Dodger, helpless in the chair, watched in something like awe, his mind springing to and fro from the spectacle of the barber’s preparations to a pleasing image of the admiration he hoped would appear on Simplicity’s face once she saw him scrubbed up so well, oh my, a proper young gent. Now he could see that the man’s hands had scars on every finger, although this slight problem barely showed up because Sweeney was briskly whisking up the shaving foam with all the manic enthusiasm of a circus clown. The stuff was falling out all over the place, and here and there, because it had been so suffused with air as to make it practically dirigible; it was floating away on the breeze as if it wanted to get out of there as much as Dodger did right now – especially since he was aware of that smell, that heavy and unpleasant smell, gradually permeating the shop.

‘Are you feeling all right, Mister Todd?’ he said. And, ‘Your hands are shaking a little bit, Mister Todd.’

The barber’s face looked like steel, if steel could sweat, and he was swaying back and forth with his eyes like two holes in the snow, looking far away but at something else, somewhere else. Dodger began stealthily to extricate himself from the cloth, whilst keeping a sharp eye on the man. And, oh dear, and now Mister Todd started to mumble, the words blurred as they tried to get out one after the other, some of them so urgent to get away from the swaying man that they overtook themselves.

Then Sweeney was between Dodger and the door to the street, waving the gleaming razor like a bride just after her wedding, straining to see who is going to catch the bouquet . . .

Dodger, hoping that his heartbeat could not be heard, said calmly, ‘Tell me what you see, Mister Todd; it sounds terrible. Can I help you?’

Bang bang went his heart, but Dodger ignored it. Unfortunately, so did Sweeney Todd, whose mutterings began to take on something vaguely if erratically understandable. Moving gently, so very gently, Dodger slowly eased himself out of the chair and to his feet and he thought, Opium, maybe? He sniffed, wished he hadn’t – no alcohol on the man’s breath either. He said in as kind a voice as he could muster, ‘What is it you are looking at, Mister Todd?’

‘They . . . they keep coming back. Yes, yes, coming back, trying to take me away with them . . . I remember them . . . Do you know what a cannonball can do, sir? Sometimes they bounce, very funny, ha, and then they are running along the ground, and then some lad . . . yes, some lad fresh from the farm in Dorset or Ireland, with his head full of lies about combat, and in his pocket a badly drawn picture of his girlfriend, who might have let him tickle her fancy because he was the brave warrior off to fight Boney . . . This young warrior sees that dreadful cannonball rolling along on the turf like it’s a game of skittles, and so like a bloody idiot he calls out to his mates, such as have survived, and he decides to give it a big kick, not knowing how much force there is still left in the ball. Which is quite enough to take off his leg, and not just his leg. Barber-surgeon, that’s me, the surgeon bit on the battlefield being somewhat akin to butchery, but slightly better paid . . . And I see them now . . . the broken men, the handiwork of God twisted into terrible shapes, terrible . . . and here they come . . . here they come, just as they always come, our glorious heroes, some seeing for those with no eyes, some carrying those with no legs, some screaming for them with no voice . . .’

All the time the razor danced and weaved, hypnotically, back and forth, while Dodger slid slowly towards the sweating man.

‘Not enough bandages, not enough medicines, not enough . . . life . . .’ Sweeney Todd mumbled. ‘I tried. I never pointed the weapon at another man, I just tried to help, when the best help you can give is the gentle knife, and yet still they come . . . they come here now, all the time . . . looking for me . . . And they say they aren’t dead, but I know they are. Dead, but still walking. Oh! The pity of it, the pity . . .’

Now Dodger’s hand, which had been following the twisting flight of the erratic blade, gently gripped the hand that held it, and it seemed to Dodger that he could see those soldiers himself, so hypnotic was the sway of the razor, and he could feel himself being dragged towards some terrible outcome until the inner Dodger, the bit that wanted to survive, woke up, saluted, took control over Dodger’s arm and neatly and carefully lifted the razor out of Sweeney Todd’s hand.

The swaying man didn’t even notice it go. Still staring into a place where Dodger did not want to see, he simply let it go and slumped down over the chair, foam settling around him softly.

Only then did Dodger realize that they weren’t alone, because while he had been half in the dream world of Sweeney Todd, there in the doorway – and being remarkably quiet for their kind – were two peelers, sweating and staring at him and poor Mister Todd. One of the peelers said, ‘Holy Mary, mother of God!’ and both men jumped back as Dodger folded up the razor and shoved it into his pocket out of harm’s way. Then he turned back, smiled cheerfully at the peelers, and said, ‘Can I help you gentlemen?’

After that, the world went mad, or at least more mad than it had been before. Dodger was surrounded by people, and the little shop was lousy with peelers, brushing past him to the back of the shop, and then he could hear the rattle of a lock, the thud of a boot and, in the distance, some terrible swearing. A gust of corruption of graveyard proportions swept through the shop to cries from the crowd, leaving Dodger suddenly feeling rather queasy and, for some reason, a bit annoyed that he hadn’t had his haircut.

There was the sound of police whistles outside and more peelers flooded into the shop, two of them then grasping the recumbent and possibly insensible Mister Sweeney Todd, who had tears running down his face. He was rushed out again, leaving Dodger on a chair in the epicentre of a hubbub that was loud enough to be considered a hubbub with at least an extra hub, not to mention bub. Faces watched him from every direction, and there was a gasp every time he moved, and in his rather troubled state he dimly heard the voice of one of the peelers who had just emerged from the cellar saying, ‘He just stood there. I mean, he just stood there, eyeball to eyeball with the man, not blinking at all, just waiting for a moment to grab the wretched weapon! We didn’t dare say a word, ’cos we saw the malefactor was in some kind of dream, a dream in the mind of a man flourishing a dreadful weapon! What can I say? I beg you, ladies and gentlemen, do not go down into the cellar. Oh no, ’cos if you do, you might see something that you really would not like to see. Stop them, Fred! Calling it dreadful carnage would not do justice to the crimes. You must trust me on this – I was a soldier once. I was at Talavera and that was bad enough. When I went down there I threw up, so I did, all over the place. I mean, well, the stink! No wonder the neighbours had been complaining! Yes, sir, you sir, can I help you?’

Blearily, Dodger saw Charles Dickens arrive on the heels of the peelers. Charlie said, ‘My name is Dickens, and I know young Dodger here to be a most excellent and trustworthy individual; he is also the hero who saved the staff of the Morning Chronicle just the other evening, and I’m sure you have all heard of that.’

Dodger began feeling rather better now, especially as there was tremendous applause, and he brightened up still further when he heard somebody in the crowd shout, ‘I propose we make up a subscription for this young man of such exceptional valour! I pledge five crowns!’

He tried to get to his feet at this point, but Charlie Dickens, who was bending over him, pushed him gently back down into the chair, bent down until his lips were very close to Dodger’s ear and whispered, ‘It would be in order to groan a little in response to your terrible encounter, my friend. Trust me as a journalist; you are a hero of the hour, again, and it would be a pity if an unguarded comment at this juncture spoiled things.’ He leaned an inch closer and whispered, ‘Listen to them shouting out how much they will pledge to the hero, and so I will carefully get you to your feet and take you to the magnificent offices of the Chronicle, where I will pen an article the like of which has never been written before, since possibly the time of Caesar.’

Charlie smiled. Rather like a fox, Dodger thought, in the spinning, roaring, suddenly baffling world. Then he inched closer, and said, ‘Incidentally, my intrepid friend, it would interest you to know that I have been told just now that Mister Sweeney Todd used his razor to slit the throats of six gentlemen who came to him earlier this week for a haircut and a close shave. But for your almost magical response you would have been the seventh of them. And these were my best trousers!’ These words were shouted, or more accurately screamed, because Dodger had thrown up his breakfast all over Charlie.

Sometime after, Dodger was seated at the long table in the editor’s office of the Chronicle, wishing he could be on his way to see Simplicity. Opposite him was Charlie, who was somewhat less angry now since, being a man of means, he had acquired another pair of trousers and sent the other ones to be cleaned. The inner wall of the office was one of those half-height affairs so that people passing by in the newsroom could see what was happening, and now, how they did pass by. And linger too, with every writer, journalist and printer finding an excuse to see the young man who, according to the magical telegraph of the streets, had wrestled to the ground the terrible Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

Dodger was getting rather annoyed about this. ‘I hardly touched ’im! I just pushed ’im gently down and took the wretched razor off ’im, that’s all! Honest! It was as if he had been taking opium or something, ’cos he was seeing dead soldiers – dead men coming towards him, I swear it, and he was talking to them, like he was ashamed that he couldn’t save them. God’s truth, Mister Charlie, I swear I was seeing them too, come the finish! Men blown all to pieces! And worse, like men half blown to pieces and screaming! He wasn’t a demon, mister, although I reckon he may have seen Hell, and I ain’t a hero, sir, I really ain’t. He wasn’t bad, he was mad, and sad, and lost in his ’ead. That’s all of it, sir, the up and the down of it, sir. An’ that’s the truth you should write down. I mean, I ain’t no hero, ’cos I don’t think he was a villain, sir, if you get my drift.’

Then there was silence, somehow filled by Charlie’s gaze, in this polished little room. A clock ticked and, without looking, Dodger could feel the employees still taking every opportunity to look at him, the unassuming and reluctant hero of the hour. Charlie was staring at him, occasionally playing with his pen, and at last the man said, with a sigh, ‘Dear Mister Dodger, the truth, rather than being a simple thing, is constructed, you need to know, rather like Heaven itself. We journalists, as mere wielders of the pen, have to distil out of it such truths that mankind, not being god-like, can understand. In that sense, all men are writers, journalists scribbling within their skulls the narrative of what they see and hear, notwithstanding that a man sitting opposite them might very well brew an entirely different view as to the nature of the occurrence. That is the salvation and the demon of journalism, the knowledge that there is almost always a different perspective from which to see the conundrum.’

Charlie played with his pen some more, looking uncomfortable, and went on, ‘After all, my young Dodger, what exactly are you? A stalwart young man, plucky and brave and apparently without fear? Or possibly, I suggest, a street urchin with a surfeit of animal cunning and the luck of Beelzebub himself. I put it to you, my friend, that you are both of these, and every shade in between. And Mister Todd? Is he truly a demon – those six men in the cellar would say so! If they could but speak, of course. Or is he the victim, as you would like to think of him? What is the truth? you might ask, if I was giving you a chance to speak, which at the moment I am not. My answer to you would be that the truth is a fog, in which one man sees the heavenly host and the other one sees a flying elephant.’

Dodger began to protest. He hadn’t seen no heavenly host; no elephant neither – he didn’t actually know what one of those was – though he’d put a shilling on the fact that Solomon had probably seen both on his travels.

But Charlie was still talking. ‘The peelers saw a young man face down a killer with a dreadful weapon, and for now that is the truth that we should print and celebrate. However, I shall add a little tincture of – shall we say – a slightly different nature, reporting that the hero of the hour nevertheless took pity on the wretched man, understanding that he had lost his wits due to the terrible things he had witnessed in the recent wars. I will write that you spoke very eloquently to me about how Mister Todd himself was a casualty of those wars, just as were the men in his cellar. I will make your views known to the authorities. War is a terrible thing, and many return with wounds invisible to the eye.’

‘That’s pretty sharp of you, Mister Charlie, changing the world with a little scribble on the paper.’

Charlie sighed. ‘It may not. He will either hang or they will send him to Bedlam. If he’s unlucky – for I doubt he would have the money necessary to ensure a comfortable stay there – it will be Bedlam. Incidentally, I would be very grateful if you could attend at the premises of Punch tomorrow so that our artist, Mister Tenniel, can draw your likeness for the paper.’

Dodger tried to take all this in, and said finally, ‘Who are you going to punch?’

‘I am not going to punch anybody; Punch is a new periodical magazine of politics, literature and humour which, if you don’t know, means something that makes you laugh, and possibly think. One of the founders was Mister Mayhew, our mutual friend.’ Charlie’s jaw dropped suddenly, and he scribbled down a few words on the paper in front of him. ‘Now off you go, enjoy yourself and please come back here as soon as you can tomorrow.’

‘Well, if you will excuse me, sir, I have another appointment anyway,’ said Dodger.

‘You have an appointment, Mister Dodger? My word, it seems to me that you are becoming a man for all seasons.’

As Dodger hurried off, he wondered exactly what Charlie had meant. He was damned if he was going to ask him, but he would find out what it meant as soon as possible. Just in case.