Dodger

as they did so.
    Dodger could now hear a fight down in the street somewhere. Well, there was always a fight; fights sprouted up like a fungus, usually because a lot of people all pushed together in these wretched, dirty slums ended up not just at the end of their tether but right off it completely. He had heard people say that the drink was behind it all, but well, you
had
to drink beer. Yes, too much of it made you drunk, but on the other hand water out of the pump might quite likely make you dead, unless you boiled it first and had the money for coal or wood. That had to wait its turn, after the food and the beer (usually the other way around).
    He thought, I believe that Grandad had the death he wanted. But surely no one should want a death like that? I can’t say it would do for me. There was suddenly another thought: if that isn’t what I want, then what is it I should strive for? It was a surprising little thought, one of those that hangs around out of general view until it pops up like a wart. He placed it behind his ear, as it were, for future deliberation.
    Solomon was talking again. ‘Mmm, as for your Mister Charlie, I’ve heard of him down at the synagogue. He is a sharp cove, he is, sharp as a razor, sharp as a snake, so they tell me. They say he can take one look at you and he’s got a perfect study of you, from the way you talk down to the way you pick your nose. He is in with the police too, as tight as a tick with them, so now old Solomon is thinking, why did a man like him give a job of police work to mmm a snotty-nosed tosher like you? And it is snotty – I know you know how to use a wipe mmm, I taught you how; just sucking it down and spitting it out on the pavement is distasteful. Are you listening? If you don’t want to end up like poor old Grandad then you’d better end up like somebody else, and a good start mmm would be to
look
like someone else, especially mmm if you are to do this work for that Mister Charlie. So while I am making the dinner, I want
you
to go to see my friend Jacob, down at the shonky shop. Tell him I sent you, and that he is to dress you from head to toe with decent schmutter for one shilling, including boots, and mind you mention that last word. Maybe you could think of it as spending part of your legacy, mmm from the late Mister Grandad? And while you’re about it, take Onan with you – he could do with the exercise, poor old thing.’
    Dodger had started to argue before he realized that this would be stupid. Solomon was right; if you lived on the streets that’s where you died, or perhaps, as in the case of old Grandad, underneath them. And it seemed the right thing somehow to spend part of his gift from Grandad – and the bounty from the sewers – on smartening himself up a bit, and it
would
help to look better if he was to try this new line of work . . . he liked the idea of more specie from Mister Charlie. Besides, if you were going to help a lady in distress, it paid to look smart while you were doing so.
    He set off, trailed by Onan, who was overjoyed at going out in daylight, and you just had to hope that he didn’t get carried away. For all dogs smell – this being a chief, nay essential component of being a dog when being able to smell and be smelled is of great importance – but it had to be said that Onan not only smelled like every other dog; he introduced a generous portion of Onan smell into the mix as well.
    They headed for the shonky shop to see Jacob and, if Dodger remembered correctly, Jacob’s rather strange wife whose wig, however you looked at it, never quite seemed to be right. Jacob ran a pawnshop as well as the shonky shop, and Dodger knew that Solomon suspected that Jacob also bought things without troubling himself where they came from, although he never said why he suspected that.
    The pawnshop was where you took your tools if you were out of work, and where you bought them back again when you were back in the job, because it’s easier to eat bread than eat hammers. If you were really skint you popped your unnecessary clothes too; well, at least some of them. If you never turned up to buy them back they would go into the shonky shop, where Jacob and his sons worked all day sewing and mending and cutting and seaming and generally turning old clothes into, if not
new
clothes, at least into something
respectable
. Dodger found Jacob and his sons quite friendly.
    Jacob greeted Dodger with an expensive grin, which is one where