Dodger

jewellery. And it was jewellery that was more to be valued, well, because it
was
the wedding ring, wasn’t it, and not just a certain amount of gold. There were often the magic words ‘Reward to finder’, and with a certain amount of careful negotiation, Solomon pointed out, you could get rather more for it than you would get from a fence. Besides, you would never take it to a kosher jeweller, because they would set the police on you even though you’d merely ‘found’ it, not stolen it. Sometimes honesty was its own reward, said Solomon, but Dodger thought it helped if some money came with it.
    Money apart, Dodger found he felt happier on those days when he had indeed been able to bring somebody back in touch with some treasured necklace or ring, or any other trinket which they held dear; it made him walk on air for a while, which was indeed a cut above what he was normally treading on in the sewers.
    One day, after a kiss from a lady who had recently been a blushing bride and whose wedding ring had unfortunately come off her finger whilst she was getting into the carriage to go to her new home, he had said to Solomon, because some of the other toshers had been teasing him a lot, ‘Are you trying to save my soul?’ And Solomon, with a little grin that was never far from his face, said, ‘Mmm, well, I am exploring the possibility that you may have one.’
    That little change in his habits, which helped glue together the relationship with Solomon, meant that he didn’t – unlike some of the other toshers – have to shiver in doorways of a night, or hunker down under a piece of tarpaulin, or pay for the dreadful stinking ha’penny rope down at the flophouse. All Solomon wanted from him was a bit of company in the evenings, and occasionally the old man tactfully required Dodger’s companionship when he was going to see one of his customers and therefore carrying mechanisms, jewellery and other dangerously expensive things. In the vicinity, news of Dodger’s mercurial personality had got about, and so he and Solomon could travel entirely unmolested.
    As a job, Dodger thought Solomon’s was pretty good. The old boy made small things – usually things to replace things, precious and treasured things that had gone missing. Last week Dodger had seen him repair a very expensive musical box, which was full of gears and wires. The whole thing had been damaged when some workmen had dropped it when the owners were moving house, and he had watched the old man handle every single piece as if it was something special – cleaning, shaping, and gently bending, slowly, as if there was all the time in the world. Some ornamental ivory inlays had been broken on the rosewood cabinet and Solomon replaced them with little bits of ivory from his small store, polishing it up so neatly he said that the lady he had done it for had given him half a crown over and above his normal charge.
    OK, sometimes some of Dodger’s chums called him
shabbos goy
, but he noticed that he ate better than any of them, and cheaper too, since among the market stalls Solomon could haggle even a Cockney until the man gave in – and Heaven help any stallholder who sold Solomon short weight, bad bread or rotting apples, let alone a boiled orange and all the other tricks of the trade , including the wax banana. When you took into account the good and healthful eating, the arrangement was not to be sneezed at, and Dodger never liked to catch a cold.
    When Jacob and his sons had got through with the dance of the flying pants, shirts, socks, vests and shoes, they stood back and beamed at one another in the knowledge of a job well done, and then Jacob said, ‘Well now, I do not know. Upon my word, what magicians we are, ain’t we? What we have created here, my sons, is a gentleman, fit for any society if they don’t mind a slight smell of camphor. But it’s that or moths, everybody knows, even Her Majesty herself, and right now I reckon, my dears, that if she walked in this door she would say, “Good afternoon, young sir, don’t I know you?”’
    ‘It’s a bit tight in the crotch,’ said Dodger.
    ‘Then don’t think naughty thoughts until it stretches,’ said Jacob. ‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do. Seeing as it’s you I will throw in this excellent hat, just your size if you padded it out a bit so it ain’t covering your ears, and I reckon the style will soon be all the rage again.’ Jacob stood back, mightily pleased with the