Morgan’s Run Read Online Free PDF Page B

subsistence living—tradesmen and artisans in the main, and accompanied by their wives and children. Between threepence and fourpence a head bought them plenty of palatable food and a big pitcher of small beer, and for those who preferred full beer, rum or gin or Bristol milk (a sherry much favored by the women), another sixpence would see them merry enough to tumble into bed and sleep the moment they got home, safe from footpads and the press gangs because that extended gloaming kept darkness at bay.
    So Richard descended into a social club still golden-lit as much from the westering sun outside as from the oil lamps fixed to the exposed beams of walls and ceiling, black against the brilliant pallor of whitewashed plaster. The only portable lamp burned at Mine Host’s place behind his counter, at the far end of it from Ginger, the tavern’s most famous attraction.
    Ginger was a large wooden cat Richard had carved after reading of the renowned Old Tom in London—a distinct improvement on the original, he prided himself. It stood diagonally across the boards with its nether regions closest to the drinkers, an orange-striped cat with jaws open in a wide smile and tail at a jaunty angle. When a customer wanted a measure of rum, he put a threepenny coin into its mouth and rested it upon the flexible tongue, which flopped down with an audible click. Then he held his mug beneath the two realistic testicles at its rear and pulled the tail; the cat promptly pissed exactly half a pint of rum.
    Naturally the older children present were its greatest users; many a dad and mum were wheedled into drinking more than they ought for the sheer pleasure of putting a coin into Ginger’s mouth, pulling his tail, and watching him piss a stream of rum. If Richard had done no more for the Cooper’s Arms than that, he had vindicated his father’s generosity in taking him into the business.
    As Richard crossed the sawdust-strewn floor with wooden bowls full of steaming broth distributed precariously up both arms, he exchanged conversation with everybody, his face lighting up as he told them of William Henry’s optimistic prognosis.
    Mr. Thistlethwaite was not there. He came at eleven in the morning and stayed until five, sitting at “his” table under the window, which bore an inkwell and several quills (but he could buy his own paper, said Dick Morgan tersely), composing his lampoons. These were printed up by Sendall’s bookshop in Wine Street and sold there, though Mr. Thistlethwaite also had outlets on a few stalls in Pie Powder Court and Horse Fair, far enough from Sendall’s not to affect its market. They sold extremely well, for Mr. Thistlethwaite owned a rare ripeness of epithet and was apt into the bargain. His targets were usually Corporation officials from the Mayor through the Commander of Customs to the Sheriff, or religious entities addicted to pluralism, or those who presided over the courts. Though quite why he had it in for Henry Burgum the pewterer was a mystery—oh, Burgum was a dyed-in-the-wool villain, but what precisely had he done to Mr. James Thistlethwaite?
    And so the supper hour wore down amid a general feeling of repletion and well-being, until promptly at eight o’clock by the old timepiece on the wall next to the slate, Dick Morgan rapped: “Settle up accounts, gentlemen!” After which, his tin cash box satisfyingly heavy, he shepherded the last toddler out the door and bolted it securely. The cash box went upstairs with him and was deposited beneath his own bed with a string tied from its handle to his big toe. Bristol had more than its share of thieves, some of them most artful. In the morning he transferred the mass of coins to a canvas bag and took it to the Bristol Bank in Small Street, a concern headed by, among others, a Harford, an Ames and a Deane. Though no matter which one of Bristol’s three banks a man patronized, it would be Quakers looking after his money.

    William Henry was sleeping soundly