Dodger

building again! Mind you don’t get that suit dirty – I want to see you back here later with not one mark on it. Now, your boots, boy.’ Solomon opened one of his strongboxes and handed Dodger a small metal container saying, ‘This is the proper boot polish, the real thing, even smells nice mmm, not like that dratted pig fat you use! You will expend some elbow grease shining your shonky boots until you can see your somewhat shonky face in them, which leads me on to the next thing that you are going to have to do, because you will see that your face needs almost as much work as your boots, since you didn’t mmm wash properly last night.’
    Before Dodger could object Solomon continued, ‘And then you will realize that what you tend to think of as your hair is in fact something worse than mmm a Mongolian’s breeches, which are noisome things indeed, for the hair and bits of yak; indeed, I believe yak milk is what they use on their hair for special occasions. And so, since I don’t want to have to flee to yet another country mmm, after you have got yourself spruced up and looking like a Christian – because, my dear boy, the chances of you ever looking Jewish are thankfully small – I suggest you go and find yourself a proper barber for a haircut and a professional shave, not mmm from an old man whose hands get shaky when he’s tired.’
    Dodger could shave himself in a lacklustre kind of way – even if, truthfully speaking, there wasn’t really all that much to shave yet – but he had never had a proper official haircut in his life. He would generally just do it himself, slicing off handfuls of hair with his knife, using Solomon as a kind of clever looking glass since the old boy just stood in front of him and told him whereabouts to slice next. This left something to be desired, possibly everything, and then he would have to have a go with the nit comb, which was uncomfortable to say the least, but it stopped the itching. It was great to see the little buggers dropping out onto the floor too, where he could jump up and down on them, knowing that for the next few days, at least, he was not going to be a nitwit.
    He plunged his hand into his scalp now, a technique which Solomon called the German comb, and he had to admit that Sol was right – there was considerable room for improvement up there above his eyebrows. So he said, ‘I know where there’s a barbershop. I saw it the other day when I was in Fleet Street.’
    He had enough time, he thought, as he applied the aforesaid elbow grease to his boots, along with the newfound boot polish. Solomon, standing over him to make certain he did it properly, said that he had bought the polish in Poland. There seemed to be no end to the countries that Solomon had visited and left at speed; it wouldn’t do to force him to go to another.
    Dodger now remembered how Solomon had once taken a pepperbox pistol from one of his strongboxes. ‘What do you want that for?’ he had asked. And Solomon had said, ‘Once bitten, twice shy. But not that shy . . .’
    When the boots were cleaned to the old man’s satisfaction – and he was not easily satisfied – Dodger sprinted in the general direction of Fleet Street. The streets were warming up, but he felt clean, even if there was a certain question mark over the shonky suit: it was making him itch like mad! It looked wonderful, and he wanted to be all nonchalant and wide as he walked up the street, but this was rather spoiled by the fact that every spare minute he was scratching somewhere about his person. It was an itch that wanted to move about, a playful itch, and it wanted to play hide and seek, at one point being in his boots and then turning up behind his ears, and just as quickly finding its way into his crotch, where on the whole it was rather difficult to do anything about in public. However, he decided that going faster might help and so he arrived, slightly breathless, at the barbershop he had noticed yesterday, and for the first time glanced at the little nameplate, which he eventually deciphered as:
Mr Sweeney Todd, Barber-Surgeon
.
    He stepped inside the place, which appeared to be empty until he spotted a pale and rather nervous-looking man who was sitting in the barber’s chair and drinking a beverage of what turned out to be coffee. The barber sighed as he saw Dodger, dusted down his apron and said with brittle cheerfulness, ‘Good morning, sir! An excellent morning! What can I do for you