Dodger

make himself a real little virgin when he wanted to. After a few hours of this, the girls tipped him off to the whereabouts of a particularly nasty dandy who always hung around the smaller girls, and who was heading towards him with his nice coat and his cane, jingling the money in his pockets. And the street applauded when a suddenly rather athletic little flower girl grabbed the smarmy bastard, punched him, dragged him into an alley and made certain that he would not be able to jingle anything in his pockets for some time to come.
    That had been one of Dodger’s very good days because, well, firstly he had done a good deed for the flower girls, earning from one or two of them the likelihood of an occasional kiss and cuddle, as between friends. Secondly, since he had left a gentleman groaning in the alley without even his unmentionables, he had harvested one gold watch, one guinea, a couple of sovereigns, some small change, an ebony walking cane set with silver trimmings, and one pair of the said unmentionables. 1 And the bonus in the whole affair was that the man was never, ever likely to get in touch with the peelers. Also, he had forgotten this: there had been the gold tooth which the man had spat at him after the best punch that Dodger had ever laid on anybody. He had actually caught it in the air, much to the applause of the flower girls, making him feel for a while the cock of the heap. He had taken the older flower girls for an oyster supper and it had been the best day a young man could ever have. It was always worth doing a good deed, though that had been before he had rescued Solomon , who wouldn’t have approved of some aspects of the enterprise.
    Since Dodger was now practically on his home patch, blackened by smoke though it was, he let his guard down and a hand landed on his shoulder with a grip that was surprising, given that its owner mostly used his strength to push a pen.
    ‘Well, Mister Dodger! You will be amazed how much I had to spend on the growler to get here so quickly. And, may I say, your sewers have made short work of your suit. Any chance of there being a coffee house around here, do you think?’
    Dodger thought not, but did volunteer that one of the nearby meat pie houses might have some of it on the go, adding, ‘Not certain what it will taste like. A bit like, probably very much like, the meat pies, really; I mean, you have to be really hungry, if you see what I mean.’
    In the end, he led Charlie to a pub where they could talk without being overheard, and where it was least likely somebody would try to pick Charlie’s pocket. When Dodger went in, he was Dodger in spades. No, come to think about it, not just in spades, but also in clubs, hearts and diamonds as well – a diamond geezer, the friend of everyone in the rookeries. He glad-handed Quince, the landlord, and a few of the other hangers-on of dubious repute with enough fire to send the word to those who had the eyes to see that this mark belonged to Dodger, and nobody else.
    On the whole, Charlie was putting a good face on it, but nevertheless, here he was in the rookeries, where even the peelers trod carefully and never, ever went singly. Here was Charlie, as out of place as Dodger had felt himself at first in Parliament. Two different worlds.
    London wasn’t all that big when you thought about it: a square mile of mazes, surrounded by even more streets and people and . . . opportunities . . . and outside that a load of suburbs who thought they were London, but they weren’t at all, not really, at least not to Dodger. Oh, sometimes he went outside the square mile – oh, as far as two miles away! – and he took great care to cloak himself with the full cocksureness of geezerdom. Then he could be all friendly with all those people it paid to be friendly with, and geezer would call unto geezer; the geezers of the Outer Wastes, as Dodger called those streets, weren’t exactly friends but you respected their patch in the hope and sureness that they would respect yours. You reached an understanding with looks, assumptions and the occasional exchange of gestures which hardly needed words. But it was all a show, a game . . . and when he was not Dodger, he sometimes wondered who he really was. Dodger, he thought, was a lot stronger than he was.
    Now and then, a customer in the pub glanced at Charlie and then looked at Dodger, and instantly thought they understood and looked away.
No problem, ’nuff said, guv’nor,