SOLOMON HAD BEEN waiting up for him. He hadn’t been in the neighbourhood audience, because no room in the attic faced the street. His windows instead looked out on one side of some warehouses, which Solomon had considered a much better view than the kind of things you have to see in the street itself. Only a very few words were exchanged in the darkness before Dodger flopped down onto his mattress and the last candle was snuffed.
As he snuggled down under his blanket in the knowledge of a day well filled, Dodger watched his own thoughts swim past his eyes. No wonder the world spun – there were so many changes. How long ago was it that he had heard a scream and jumped out of a foaming sewer . . . how many days was it? He counted – three days. Three days! It was as if the world was moving too fast, laughing at Dodger to keep up with it. Well, he would chase the world and take what came and deal with it. Tomorrow he would be attending a wonderful dinner at a place where there was certainly going to be Simplicity, and it appeared to him as tiredness built up that the important thing in all this was how you seemed and he was learning how to seem. Seem to be a hero, seem to be a clever young man, seem to be trustworthy. That seemed to fool everybody, and the most disconcerting thing about this was it was doing the same to him, forcing him on like some hidden engine. And with that strange deduction still in his head, he fell asleep.
The following morning, the man whose job it was to open the doors of Coutts Bank to the customers found himself looking at an elderly Jewish gentleman in a ragged gabardine coat, whose eyes gleamed with mercantile zeal. This apparition pushed past him, followed by a young man in an ill-fitting suit and a nasty-smelling dog. Among some of the other clients, there was some murmuring about poor people coming in there, until it turned out – after every coin above the rank of sixpence was duly bagged and signed for – that these were poor people with a lot of money.
A receipt and a shiny new bank book were received, the little party swept away as fast as they had come in, and the Red Sea closed again, the planets wobbled back to their rightful orbits, first-born children once again played happily and all was right with the world. Except that part of it now contained one of Mister Coutts’ senior partners, who was realizing that somehow he had agreed to a rate of interest that they seldom offered, but he had considered cheap at the price if it got Solomon out of the building before he threw out the moneylenders. The suggestion was, of course, ridiculous and unfounded in every respect, but Solomon nevertheless was always a winner when it came to bargaining and it tended to leave everybody somewhat dazed.
As soon as they got outside the bank, Dodger reminded Solomon, somewhat reluctantly, that he was due in the offices of Punch magazine, so that some artist or other could draw a picture of him for the front cover.
Mister Tenniel turned out to be a young man only a little bit older than Dodger and whose brown hair seemed closer to red. With Dodger in a seat in front of him, the two of them chatted away while the artist drew. Being drawn by Mister Tenniel wasn’t all that difficult, and a lot less difficult, Solomon said, than being drawn and quartered, at least. That was apparently a Solomon joke; one he didn’t explain to Dodger.
Perhaps, Dodger thought, he should have said that the process was not difficult but occasionally worrying, because Mister Tenniel would scribble and scribble and then suddenly dart a glance towards Dodger, which pinned him like a butterfly, and then just as soon disappear as Mister Tenniel got back to the scribbling again. Only the top of his head could be seen as the artist bent over his work, while Solomon sat drinking coffee and reading a complimentary issue of Punch.
To Dodger’s amazement, being drawn didn’t take very much time, and finally Tenniel made a sudden few last-minute adjustments to the portrait on his easel and turned it towards Dodger with a grin. ‘I’m pretty pleased with this, Mister . . . may I call you Dodger? I think I have your essence down pat, but of course the paper is always somewhat cluttered, and I will be expected to add a few other details to give the public some vision of what transpired in Mister Sweeney Todd’s shop. I need to draw Mister Todd too, you know – the public demands both hero and villain.’
Dodger swallowed. ‘But Mister Todd wasn’t really a villain, sir—’ he tried.
Tenniel cut him off with a wave of his brush. ‘I hear that Talavera was a most dreadful battle. They say that Wellington simply threw men forward into the mouths of the cannons in abandon, and to great loss of life. One can only hope that the deaths were worth the sacrifice, if that could be possible.’ He shook Dodger by the hand and went on, ‘Mister Dickens told me the truth about what happened on that day in Fleet Street, and it is wonderful, is it not, how the public perception of what is true these days seems always biased towards the macabre? It would seem that the common man likes nothing so much as an ’orrible murder.’ He paused and added, ‘Is there something the matter, Mister Dodger?’
As often as Tenniel had closely scrutinized Dodger, so had Dodger in his turn scrutinized him. He had seen not what was there, but at one point seen something very subtly out of kilter. It took a while for him to see it properly and to find the words.
Embarrassed at being caught staring, he decided to make a clean breast of it and said, ‘I believe you have something wrong with your left eye, don’t you, Mister Tenniel? I hope it ain’t too much of a drawback in your profession?’
The artist’s face froze and then thawed into a lopsided smile. ‘The scar is so small, I believe that you are the first man I have met to notice it. In fact, it was a trivial childhood accident.’
Dodger, watching the smiling face, thought: Not, I think, so trivial.
‘Charlie was right in what he said about you the other day!’
‘Oh? Mmm, and what did Charlie say about my friend Dodger the other day, if you please, sir?’ Solomon rumbled, standing up and packing the magazine into the depths of his coat. ‘I would very much like to know.’ He smiled, of course, but the wording was emphatic.
This was most certainly picked up by Tenniel, who blushed and said, ‘Since I have put my foot in it, sir, I can do no more than tell the truth – will you please not tell Mister Dickens that I mentioned it? What he said, in fact, was: “Mister Dodger is so sharp that one day his name will be known on every continent, possibly as a benefactor of mankind, but also quite possibly as the most charming scoundrel ever to be hanged!”’
Mister Tenniel took a step backwards in amazement when Solomon, laughing, said, ‘Well, at least Mister Dickens is a wonderful judge of character, and directness in a man such as himself is admirable. But should you meet him before I do, please tell him that Solomon Cohen is endeavouring to see that the first option will prevail! Thank you very much for your time, sir, but please excuse us now, because I must go with the young ruffian to a place where he will get cleaner than he’s ever been in his life, because this evening we are due to go to a very important dinner engagement in the West End. Good day to you, sir, and thank you, but now we really must take our leave.
‘No time to dawdle, Dodger,’ said Solomon as the door closed behind them. ‘You know how keen I am on bathing? Well, we are today going to have a Turkish bath, with all the trimmings.’
This was news to Dodger, but Solomon’s wisdom and efforts at basic hygiene had kept him alive so far, so it was almost inconceivable for Dodger to thwart his friend on this occasion; he dared not argue for fear that Solomon’s righteous zeal would cause him to drag Dodger there by the ear. Acquiescence was better than becoming a laughing stock in all the rookeries and stews. And so, putting a brave face on it, he followed the old man out into what was really a drizzle with smoke in its eye, where they unhooked Onan from the lamppost where he had been tethered in the certain knowledge that nobody would ever want to steal him.