Dodger of the Dials Read Online Free PDF Page A

begun singing some bawdy songs to pass the time. Scratcher had cheered up a good deal after we had finished ridiculing him for his poor standard of crowing and he was now he was enjoying listening to Tom entertain us all with what had occurred inside the manor.
    ‘They’re probably still searching every room in the crib now,’ Georgie laughed as he drove the horse over London Bridge, ‘looking for the maidservant. How did you think of that, Skinner?’
    ‘Mary is my given name,’ explained Tom as she blew her smokerings out over the Thames. ‘And I was all set to enter domestic service before my family threw me out for thievery. As well as various other sorts of miscreant behaviour.’ Then she leaned back against the side of the cart and withdrew into herself as we neared home.
    Scratcher still lived with his family in Bethnal Green but he asked to be dropped off at a spot in Cheapside where some other urchins was playing in the street. Before he alighted I gave him another quick lecture concerning the value of a silent tongue. We, for example,was happy not to tell his pals about his cowardly behaviour on the crack if he too would practice discretion concerning our possession of the Lady of Stars. I then ruffled his dirty mop of hair and told him that we would call round to his home with his share of the bunce after tomorrow’s meeting so he was one lucky little lad. ‘And you keep safe, y’hear,’ I called after him as he went off to play with the other kinchins. ‘Don’t be getting in no trouble.’
    As we approached High Holborn I spied a familiar stallholder further up the thoroughfare who was already setting up for the morning rush of commuters. The lights of the charcoal was already lit in the pots below his table and I saw his son laying out the tin mugs. Georgie announced that he could do with some refreshment after so many hours driving and he veered the cart over towards the stall and called out to the lad for three hot cups.
    ‘You’re paying though,’ I told him before he could argue. ‘Because I won’t get much change from this necklace.’ But before we could get close to the stall we was surprised to hear the coffee-vendor barking at us to keep moving.
    ‘I knows you lot,’ he said and pulled his son back behind the counter. ‘You’re those villains from Seven Dials and around. Well, I ain’t letting you get close enough to pinch another mug.’
    ‘I think you’re mistaking us with some others, good sir,’ I replied and lifted my hat to him. ‘We’re respectable paying customers, we are.’
    ‘You’re thieves and nothing more,’ he shouted back. ‘And I’ve taken my last forged shilling from your little crew. Go bother someone else with your base coin.’
    I was outraged by this unprovoked assault upon my company but not as much as Georgie, who reared up the horse to enter into a heated altercation with the man. He cursed him with the sort of colourful language that you did not expect to hear on a publicstreet at that hour in the morning and threatened to get out of the cart for some fisticuffs. I sympathised with the sentiments he was expressing but I still thought it unwise to attract any more attention so I just reached out and touched his coat sleeve.
    ‘Let’s just take our business elsewhere then, George,’ I said and indicated that he should just move us along. ‘It’s been a long night.’ Georgie agreed but not before throwing the coffee-man a hand gesture what communicated his displeasure in ways what words never could and left him to explain the meaning of it to his son.
    ‘Thieves and nothing more?’ Georgie continued to rant after he had driven the cart on towards the vicinity of London where we all lived. ‘We’re champions of our class, we are. Champions of our class!’ Tom nodded in lazy agreement as she spat on her silver tureen and gave it a polish.
    ‘They should be lining the streets for us, Georgie,’ I said as he drove the cart down Monmouth