Dodger

behind them, she relaxed a little and said, ‘That old baggage of a housekeeper will swear blind that you must have picked up a lot of trinkets when you were here last night, and you may be sure that the picker-up of said trifles will be that lady herself. Therefore it would be very likely that any friendships you have made here will vanish like the morning dew. The family are decent sorts, always a soft touch for a hard luck story from a broken-down artisan or fallen woman who would like to get up again, and I’ve seen them come and go. Quite a lot of them are genuine, let me tell you; I know.’
    As politely as possible, Dodger tried to remove her hands from his person. She seemed to be patting him down rather more than was warranted and with a certain enthusiasm and a gleam in her eye.
    She saw his expression and said, ‘I ain’t always been this old fat baggage; I fell once and bounced back up again. That’s the way to think about it, lad. Anyone can rise if they have enough yeast. I was not always like this; oh my word, you would be amazed and probably quite amused – and I might say in one or two cases embarrassed.’
    ‘Yes, missus,’ said Dodger. ‘And would you please stop patting.’
    She laughed, causing an oscillation of chins, and then, rather more solemnly, said, ‘The kitchen maid told me that the talk is that you helped save some sweet girl from ruffians last night and I know, I just
know
you will get blamed for something unless I show you the lay of the land. So, little fellow, you just give Aunty Quickly here anything you is thinking of running away with, and I will see it gets put back where it belongs. I like this family and I won’t have them robbed, even by a lively lad such as yourself. So if you own up now all sins will be forgiven and you will walk out of here without a stain on your character, although I wish I could say the same about the stains on the rest of you.’ Her nose wrinkled as she took in the state of his trousers.
    Smirking, Dodger handed her one silver spoon, saying, ‘One spoon , and only because I was still holding it when you dragged me down here!’ Then he pulled out the pack of cards. ‘And this, missus, was handed to me by Mister Dickens.’
    Nevertheless, but with a grin, the cook patted him down again right there and then, finding his knife, his brass knuckles and his short crowbar; she pointedly ignored them, but also made him take his shoes off for inspection, whereupon she winced at the smell, with a hand theatrically over her nose, and made it clear that she wanted him to put them on again as quickly as possible. She said cheerfully, ‘Not got nothing up your jacksie, yes? Wouldn’t be the first to have tried. No, I ain’t going to look; you’ve got more meat on your ribs than most of your type, which means you are rather innocent, or very clever; I trust that it is the latter, and would be most surprised if it is the former. Now what we’ll do next is that I’ll drag you upstairs, shouting at you like the scum you are, so that the old baggage can hear. What I shall shout is that I’ve searched you thoroughly at risk to my own health and am throwing you out absolutely empty-handed. After that I will kick you out the door on the toe of my boot for the look of the thing, and then I’ll get on with my work, which will be all the more enjoyable when I think of the nasty old boot seething like a cauldron of bees.’ She gave Dodger a long look as if sizing him up and said, ‘You’re on the tosh, ain’t you?’
    ‘Oh yes, missus.’
    ‘A lot of work for not much money, so I hear.’
    Never tell anybody everything. So he said, ‘Oh well, I don’t know, missus, I just makes a living.’
    ‘Now, come on, let’s do the pantomime for them as is surely listening, and off you go, but remember – come and see Quickly if you ever feel the need for a friend. I mean what I say: if I can ever help you, you just have to whistle. And if I knock on your door in hard times, don’t leave it shut.’
    Outside, the sun was hardly visible in the smoke, mist and fog, but that was the clear light of day for somebody like Dodger. A bit of sunshine was OK, he would agree, because it helped your clothes dry, but Dodger liked the shadows and, if possible, the sewers, and right now something in him wanted the solace of darkness.
    So he crowbarred the lid of the nearest drain cover and dropped onto what wasn’t all that bad a surface down below. The storm last