Dodger

oil.
    ‘Therefore,’ said Dodger, ‘surely
want
is the same as
need
, yes?’
    Solomon counted out the coins very slowly and in silence, and then said, ‘Are you certain you weren’t born Jewish?’
    ‘No,’ said Dodger. ‘I’ve looked. I’m not, but thanks for the compliment.’
    The last call before they went home was to a barber – a perfectly reasonable and careful barber who didn’t include extras like having your throat cut. However, the poor fellow was unmanned when Solomon said, just as the barber was shaving Dodger, ‘It might impress you, sir, if I told you that the gentleman you are now shaving was the hero who put paid to the activities of the nefarious Mister Sweeney Todd.’
    This intervention caused the man to panic – only a fraction, but nevertheless not a thing to do when you have just put a very sharp cut-throat razor to a man’s throat, and it nearly caused another hey-ho-rumbelow in the vicinity of Dodger’s neck. The nick was not big, but the amount of blood was out of all proportion to the size, and so there was a great performance with towels, and alum for the cut. It would certainly leave a scar, which was something of a bonus as far as Dodger was concerned; the Hero of Fleet Street ought to sport something on his face to show for it.
    Then, once his face was tidy and, of course, Solomon had negotiated in a friendly but firm way six months of free haircuts, they caught another growler home and there was just about enough time to get washed, dressed and generally smartened up.
    It was while Dodger was sponging himself down, including the crevices because, after all, this was a special occasion, he found part of himself thinking: What would I have to do to let someone die and then come alive again? Apart from being God, that is.
    Then, for some reason, the dodger at the back of his head remembered the Crown and Anchor men with their dice, and the man with the pea that you never, ever found. Then tumbling on top of that there was the voice of Charlie, saying that the truth is a fog and in it people see what they want to see, and it seemed to him that around these little pictures a plot was plotting. He trod carefully so as not to disturb it, but wheels in his head were clearly turning and he had to wait until something went
click
.
    The new clothes still fitted him exactly as promised and Dodger wished that he had something more than a tiny piece of broken mirror in which to see himself in his finery. Then he pushed aside the curtain to ask Solomon’s opinion and was confronted by Solomon arrayed in all his glory.
    A man who usually wandered around in embroidered slippers or old boots, and wore a ragged black gabardine, had suddenly become an old-fashioned but very smart gentleman with a fine black woollen barathea jacket, dark-blue pantaloon trousers and long, dark-blue woollen stockings with ancient but well-kept court shoes sporting silver buckles that shone. But what amazed Dodger most of all was the large dark-blue-and-gold medallion around Solomon’s neck. He knew what the symbols were on the medallion, but Dodger had never associated them with the old man: they were the seal and the eye in the pyramid of the Freemasons. Finally, since Solomon had washed his beard and primped it, the whole effect appeared to have an amazing power.
    And Dodger said so, which caused Solomon to smile and say, ‘Mmm, one day, my boy, I will tell you the name of the august personage who was gracious enough to give this to me. And may I say, Dodger, as always you scrub up very well; one might almost take you for a real gentleman.’
    It only remained to very cautiously give Onan his dinner and equally cautiously take him for a little walk outside to do what he needed to. They left him in dog Heaven with another bone; and then there was nothing for it but to find another growler, just as the evening fog was rising, and head back west to number one Stratton Street, Mayfair.

CHAPTER 12
    In which Dodger mixes with the gentry, Disraeli accepts a challenge and Dodger proves to be a quick learner
    DODGER STARED OUT of the cab as they rattled westwards with the words ‘I’m going to see Simplicity again’ etching themselves on his heart, or so it felt, and suddenly he thought of Simplicity being dead. Dead, and therefore no trouble to anybody – no reason for wars, no reason for people to prowl the streets with malice aforethought.
    There had to be a way! Right now, she was a girl that no one