Dodger

transformation he had achieved. He put his head on one side and said, ‘You know, young man, what you need now is a very good haircut and then you will have to poke the ladies off with a stick!’
    ‘Solomon helps me cut it when it gets too hot and I want things to cool off a bit,’ said Dodger, upon which Jacob gave the kind of explosive snort that only an offended Jewish tradesman could make, even more expressive than a Frenchman on a very bad day. Generally speaking, if it had to be written down, it would begin with something like ‘phooieu’ and end with a certain amount of spittle in the general vicinity.
    Jacob wailed, ‘That’s not a haircut, my boy. You look like you’ve been sheared! As though you’ve just got out of the clink! If Queen Victoria saw you
then
, she’d probably call out the runners. Take my advice, next time go to a proper barber! Take the advice of your old friend Jacob.’
    And so, in company with the dog Onan, who was still optimistically carrying his bone in his jaws, Dodger walked back into the world. Of course, shonky was shonky, however you looked at it; it might just do, but it wasn’t the full shilling. What around here was? Nevertheless, Dodger felt all the better for the new clobber, even with the associated crotch problem and a certain prickling under the arms, and it was certainly better than anything else he owned and hopefully worthy of the girl from the storm.
    He walked back to the alley and climbed up the rickety stairs to the attic, where Solomon greeted him with, ‘Who are you, young man?’
    On the table, spread out, were the contents of the Happy Families game. ‘Mmm . . . very interesting,’ said Solomon. ‘This is a remarkable and mmm somewhat deadly device you have presented to me. It is mmm deceptively simple, but dark clouds soon gather.’
    ‘What?’ said Dodger, looking at the brightly coloured cards laid out on the table. ‘It looks like something for kids – though nothing like the Happy Family man and his wagon, which is strange. It’s just a kids’ game, ain’t it?’
    ‘Alas, yes it is,’ said Solomon. ‘I shall expand on my little theory. Every player is dealt a hand from the pack of cards, and the object appears to be to put together one complete family,
the happy family
, simply by asking one of your opponents if they have a particular card. It would seem a cheerful game for children but, in fact, if they only did but know it, the parents are setting the child on the way to be a poker player or, worse, a politician.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Allow me to elucidate,’ said Solomon, and after a glance at Dodger’s blank face, ‘I mean,
explain
, young man. It appears to go like this. In order to mmm get your happy family, you have to choose one family, and so you might, as it were, choose to collect all of the mmm Baker family. You might think that all you need do is simply wait until it is your turn again, and boldly ask somebody to give you the next card you were looking for. It might be Miss Bun the baker’s daughter. Why? Because mmm when the cards were dealt out at the start of the game you had already got Mister Bun the baker, and so his daughter would be a step in the right direction. But beware! Your opponents might mmm, if you keep simply asking for a Bun, in their turn start asking
you
for a member of the Bun family; they may not be collecting the Buns themselves, but possibly they intend to get together a whole set of the mmm Dose family, the head of which is Mister Dose the doctor. They are asking you for a Bun when they need a Dose, because they had noticed your interest in Buns, and despite their longing for a Dose would rather use their turn mmm to put you off track whilst at the same time depriving you of a precious Bun!’
    ‘Well, I would just lie and say I hadn’t got it,’ said Dodger.
    ‘Ah ha! As the game lumbers to its conclusion your ownership of the disputed Bun will come to light, mmm yes indeed! And it will be a very sad day for you. You have to tell the truth, because if you don’t tell the truth, you will never win the game. Thus this terrible battle wages, as you decide to forsake Buns now and see if your salvation might lie mmm in collecting the family of Mister Bung the brewer, despite the fact that your family is teetotal. You hope to put at least one of your enemies under a false impression of your real intentions, while all the time you must suspect that every single one of them, no matter how