Dodger

the two ‘would-be toshers’ was a further one shilling and a farthing which, to give him his due, Disraeli handed over to Simplicity with a bow. And Charlie watched, with his hands in his pockets and a curious and calculating smile, occasionally taking out his damned notebook and scribbling, occasionally cheering a find, sometimes staring around at the debris and the smaller outlets.
    Now the light was beginning to go. Not a problem; there were lamps galore – Dodger had made certain of one each, even though he could generally get around without one. But the lamps only lit small pools in the darkness, and as the light changed the sewers began to take on their own life. Not sinister, exactly, but little noises became more acute; the rats which were otherwise minding their own business fled out of the way, the dripping of water from the ceiling seemed louder, shadows seemed to move, and it was then that the thought might creep up on a person that if you tripped over some of these crumbling bricks, or took the wrong turning at those places where sewers met and merged, you were suddenly a long way away from what you knew as civilization.
    Dodger thought, Well, Simplicity shouldn’t have any problem; he had been very careful about the special route, with the occasional brick lighter than the others and debris and other rubbish masking every wrong turn. He noticed her watching him intently now and it was no time to lose his nerve. A few more minutes would do, he thought. Once you lose the sun, then that’s when you really become a tosher.
    Then Charlie said, ‘There’s a likely-looking place over there, Dodger. You can just about make out something like an entrance.’
    Dodger bustled back to him quickly and said, ‘Do not go any further down there, sir. It is very dangerous; the floors are washed out. All very, very nasty, and all jammed up too, lots of places like it in the sewers – they just don’t get cleaned out enough. Now since we really haven’t got much light left, could we all agree that Mister Disraeli, although a gentleman, is also a tosher. Hurrah!’
    Simplicity, that is to say Master Roger, burst out laughing, as did Bazalgette, and Charlie clapped, and as the clapping came to an end there was another sound – a scraping sound, the unmistakable sound of a crowbar somewhere ahead of them opening a drain cover, and Charlie said, ‘What was that, Dodger?’
    Dodger shrugged it off and said, ‘Could be anything, sir. A trick of the sewers, you might say. The sun has gone down, things expand and contract, like they say, and you get all kinds of little noises then. It’s been quite a hot day really; sometimes you could think there was someone else down here with you, and if we simply turn round it’s an easy stroll back to where we came in. It’s not as though we’ve gone all that far, to tell you the truth.’
    Mister Bazalgette, waving his lamp, said, ‘I would really like more time, if you don’t mind.’ In the end, Dodger pacified him with the promise to take him further afield on the following day, possibly in the company of Mister Henry Mayhew, who had been unable to join this little excursion.
    After saying that, he once again delivered the two-tone whistle of a tosher. It was not returned and this worried him, for any tosher would have whistled back . . . Even the rat-catchers knew enough to shout out when a tosher whistled – that saved embarrassment all around. Well, he thought, it was quite a good plan, it really was, but I can’t do it if there is somebody else stamping around down here. Inwardly he groaned. Well, maybe tomorrow he could come up with another plan.
    He had not, he thought, heard any more noises since that scraping, apart from those made by the company, and that meant that somebody was trying to keep quiet. So right now it was important to get Simplicity out of here. It could be a very young tosher who hadn’t yet learned the ropes. Or it might be something else . . . but it wasn’t worth taking the chance. Nothing must happen to Simplicity.
    Keeping his tone cheerful, he ushered his little flock back along the way they had come, silently cursing every step. It was not as easy as may have been thought, even by the lamplight, which didn’t penetrate all that far.
    ‘Gentlemen, if you don’t mind there are a few things I’d like to look at down here,’ he said as they approached the sewer exit. ‘When you are above ground I hope that you can take care