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silhouette in the alley. Make sure you remember to lock up properly tonight, Higgins.

CHAPTER 4
    Tuesday 4th July, 1837
8:49 AM
    The next morning, Julius headed off to walk the short distance to school. He stopped at the corner of Milk Street, poked his head out and looked up and down—no sign of Crimper McCready. He ran across the road and along the pavement until he came to the City of London School, where he mingled at the gate with the other pupils for camouflage.
    Rounding the corner into the day yard, he breathed a sigh of relief. But in a moment a hand grabbed his collar and he was whisked off to the back of the toilet block. Fosdyke and Grimshaw slammed him against the wall while Crimper McCready took a drag from his cigar. All the other members of the secret smokers club stubbed out their butts and made hasty exits.
    Oh, well, at least you’ll get the beating over with nice and early, Higgins.
    Crimper was the biggest boy in the school as well as the oldest. The City of London School educated the sons of the local shopkeepers and professionals up to the age of fifteen. The problem with McCready was that he had not managed to learn anything in all the time he had been there. His father, a well-to-do butcher, had insisted that the school keep his son until he was well enough acquainted with writing and arithmetic to take his place in the family business. But this had not yet occurred, so the school still accepted fees from Mr McCready and the pupils had to deal with random and unprovoked beatings from seventeen-year-old Crimper.
    McCready screwed his currant-bun face into a sneer. ‘You’re a toffy nosed, poncy little prat, ’iggins.’
    McCready was exceptionally angry this morning. The run-in with Jack Springheel had shown him up in front of his minions, and a particularly brutal retribution was needed to put things right. Julius was thinking as fast as he could, but it was difficult with Fosdyke and Grimshaw blowing their bad breath in his face.
    â€˜Yeah, ’e’s a poncy nosed little prat,’ said Grimshaw.
    â€˜A poncy nosed, toffy little prat,’ corrected Fosdyke, incorrectly.
    â€˜You’re gonna learn yourself a lesson, ’iggins,’ said McCready through gritted teeth as he pulled a knife from inside his jacket.
    â€˜I’m gonna cut your ears off.’
    What? Julius looked into McCready’s black eyes. A wave of nausea spread through his body and his legs began to tremble. If you vomit on his shoes he’ll be even more annoyed with you, Higgins.
    Jack Springheel was right when he said that all you have to do is to convince your adversary that you are mad, bad or stupid enough to carry out your threat. McCready was all three, and as for Fosdyke and Grimshaw, they had not had to think for themselves since McCready came into their lives and they were not going to start now. If Crimper McCready wanted to cut someone’s ears off, they wouldn’t argue. Julius wished he had stayed at Jack Springheel’s lodgings and not come back to school at all.
    The blood-encrusted blade was so close to Julius’s face that he could almost taste the steel and dried blood, and he realised how much he had taken his ears for granted. There was a daydream he liked to indulge while in his more reflective moments—of surviving into adulthood, of marrying a quiet and pretty solicitor’s daughter and having his own successful bookshop in a fashionable street. Perhaps a child or two to take on trips to Margate and Bath in the summer. For some reason—he could not put his finger on it at this very moment—Julius knew that if he did not have ears, none of these things would come to pass. If he did not have ears he would have to plot a different course through life, a course he did not wish to contemplate.
    â€˜You’re a stupid, fat, ignorant currant bun!’ Julius blurted out before he could stop himself. Oh, no! Shut your gob,