Dodger

he would have to have a very important conversation with Miss Coutts, dear Miss Coutts. He knew that she was a most unusual woman with more money than practically anybody and no husband, and he smiled at himself and he thought, Hmm, a woman with loads of money who isn’t interested in a husband. After all, if you’ve got the money – your own money – a husband is sort of in the way. Solomon had told him that she had once proposed marriage to the Duke of Wellington. Wellington, known to have been a good tactician, had carefully and respectfully declined. Dodger thought, There’s a man that knew there was one battle he would never be able to win!
    Solomon put a stopper in a brandy decanter with a happy sigh and Dodger said, ‘Solomon, there’s something I must tell you.’
    It was less than fifteen minutes before the coach got to its destination, and Dodger spent a lot of that time looking nervously at Solomon, who seemed lost in thought right up until the old man said, ‘Mmm, well, Dodger, I must say that you are very thorough. You are looking at a man, old and creaky as he is now, who once got out of a jail by garrotting a gaoler with his bootlaces. It is something I regret now, while at the same time reminding myself that because of that act I am now here to tell you about the escapade – and frankly the bastard deserved it because I saw what he had done to others. My people are not known as fighters, but should it be necessary we try to be very good at it. As for your plan, it is bold, daring, and in the circumstances you describe, quite possibly something that will work. Although, my dear friend, do reflect that you will have to get this past Angela, who sees herself at the moment as the protector of our Simplicity.’
    The coach was slowing down now, and Dodger said, ‘I know what you mean, but the only person who can order Simplicity to do anything, according to the rules, is her husband, and you must understand that what he says is not going to happen, because he is a pox of a prince. A right royal richard.’
    Another flunky opened the door even before Solomon’s hand had touched it, and Solomon and Dodger were shown into a sitting room that contained Angela but, alas, not Simplicity. Angela must have noticed Dodger’s expression because she said cheerfully, ‘Simplicity is taking her time, Mister Dodger, because she is going out to a theatre with you.’ She patted the sofa next to her. ‘Do take a seat.’
    So the three of them sat there, in that rather strange silence of people who are waiting without very much to say to one another, until a door was opened and a maid came in, fussing alongside Simplicity, who smiled when she saw Dodger and turned the whole world into gold.
    Miss Coutts said, ‘How nice to see you looking so beautiful, my dear, but I think we are going to be late for
Julius Caesar
if we do not hurry. I know we have a box at the theatre, but I always think it looks so discourteous to be late.’
    Dodger was allowed to sit next to Simplicity in the coach; she wasn’t saying very much at the moment, but was apparently somewhat excited at the prospect of the theatre, while Dodger thought things like: A theatre box – that means quite a lot of people in the theatre can see you, oh dear.
    But shortly after they arrived at the theatre, in sufficient time not to be too embarrassing, the footmen – or a pair just like them – took their places behind the four of them. It must have been the original two, Dodger thought, because as he turned to look at them he thought he recognized the one who couldn’t wait to tell his mum about Dodger. For just one moment, as he recognized said Dodger, the footman proudly let him glimpse a shining display of brass knuckles, which magically disappeared again into his dressy outfit. Well, that was something.
    Dodger had been in theatres before, unofficially, but it took him some time to get the hang of what was going on. Solomon had earlier tried to give him some inkling of what
Julius Caesar
was all about, and it seemed to Dodger to be about something like a gang fight, except that everybody talked too much. But the words flew over his head and he tried to flap after them, and after a while the play began to enter him. Once you’d got used to the way they were speaking, and all the bed sheets and so on, this was about nasty people, and the moment he thought that and wondered on whose side he should bet, he remembered that these Roman coves had