There followed a conversation on the legendary tosheroons and how they were formed. Fortunately, at this time a growler pulled up and disgorged Charlie and Mister Disraeli, who was bright and shining and somewhat nervous, as sensible citizens tended to be in the general vicinity of Seven Dials. Charlie sat him down on the bench and headed into the pub, coming back shortly afterwards with a man carrying a couple of pints of beer on a tray, and Mister Bazalgette rubbed his hands and said, ‘Well now, gentlemen, when do we start?’
‘Very soon, sir,’ Dodger replied. ‘But there’s been a slight change of plan. Miss Burdett-Coutts wants one of her young footmen to come down with us because she wants to encourage him to better himself.’ He added brightly, ‘Maybe he might become an engineer like yourself, sir.’
Dodger stopped, because a very smart coach with two beefy coachmen had spun into the pub’s yard, and its doors opened to disgorge the aforesaid young footman, somewhat plumper in certain regions than the average footman, and remarkably – yes, thought Dodger – the signs of shaving around his jaw. Simplicity, and just possibly Angela, was really taking this charade seriously. The rest of them were taking it on the chin.
It wasn’t at all a bad disguise and quite a lot of young serving men were on the plump side, what with all the leftovers, but to anyone who had seen her in a dress she was Simplicity, absolutely Simplicity, and if you were Dodger, looking more beautiful – even if unshaven – than ever before. But she had been wrong; her legs were not fat! No, in Dodger’s mind, they were perfectly shaped, and he had to fight to take his mind off her legs and back onto the task ahead of him.
He wasn’t sure what Joseph Bazalgette was thinking, but quite possibly he was thinking about sewers and couldn’t have seen that much of Simplicity at the party in any case. And since Angela was right there, Charlie and Disraeli were seeing – my word, yes! – what they were supposed to see. It was, thought Dodger, a kind of political fog.
Miss Coutts leaned out of the coach window and said, ‘I will return for my young footman in an hour and a half, gentlemen. I trust you will take care of him because I have no wish to answer for him to his grieving mother. Roger is a good boy, rather shy and does not talk much.’ She added meaningfully, ‘If he is sensible.’
The coach window closed again, and Miss Angela was gone. It was left to Charlie to say, ‘Well, gentlemen, maybe we should start? We are in your hands now, Mister Dodger.’
All things planned in the rookeries had to be carefully thought through, Dodger knew. That was why, just before they left, he threw a handful of ha’pennies and farthings down where they were standing, so that the urchins around the place had more interesting things to do than follow them, so engrossed were they as they struggled against one another for this sudden storm of wealth.
Dodger kept the pace brisk with a number of unnecessary twists and turns and doubling back until he got to the sewer entrance of his choice, and proceeded to help the party down one at a time with the young footman first.
When they were all assembled, staring around at the rotting bricks and the curious unnamed growths that hung from the walls, he put a finger to his mouth to indicate silence, walked a few steps and gave out a two-tone whistle, which floated along the pipes. He waited; there was no answering call. He wasn’t expecting any other toshers today, but if there had been any, they would have answered; generally speaking, it was common sense to know if other people were working down there as well.
‘And now, gentlemen,’ he said jauntily. ‘Welcome to this, my world. As you can see, in this light sometimes it even seems a little bit golden. It’s amazing how the sun gets through. What do you think of it, Mister Disraeli?’
Disraeli, who Dodger was slightly unhappy to see had come in proper useful boots for the occasion, wrinkled his nose and said, ‘Well, I cannot recommend the smell, but it is not quite as bad as I expected.’ This was quite probably true, Dodger knew, because for quite some time in the last few hours he had done his level best to prepare the most salubrious bit of sewer there had ever been. After all, Simplicity was going to be walking in it.
‘It used to be nicer, in the old days,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Not so good now people are banging holes through from their houses, but just step careful, and please, if I ask any of you to do anything, please do it with alacrity and without question.’ He was pleased with ‘alacrity’; every so often Solomon hit him with a word he didn’t understand and Dodger had a good memory. He let them walk for a little while and then, like a tour guide, glanced down and said in the gluey tones of a Crown and Anchor man, ‘Now here’s an interesting place that’s occasionally kind to toshers.’ He stepped back and said, ‘Mister Disraeli, will you now try your luck as a tosher? I noticed you have clapped your eyes on what might be generously called a “sand bar” on the floor over there by that rivulet, and may I say, well done, sir, and so I will give you this stick and suggest you have a go.’
The group moved forwards as Disraeli, with the fixed grin of someone who wants to seem a good sport and dare not seem to be a bad one, took the stick from Dodger and approached the pile of miscellaneous debris with caution. He hunkered down and stirred about fastidiously until Dodger produced a pair of small gloves and handed them to the man, saying, ‘Try these, sir – very useful in certain circumstances if you can afford them.’ He thought Disraeli almost giggled at this point – the man did have some gumption after all – but the politician put on the gloves, rolled up his sleeves and trailed one hand in the pile, being rewarded with a clinking sound.
‘Hello,’ said Dodger. ‘Do we have some beginner’s luck here? That’s the sound of specie, right enough. Let’s see what you’ve got.’
They crowded round and Disraeli, almost in a daze, held up a half crown, as shiny and as untarnished as the day it had been coined.
‘My word, sir, you have the luck of a tosher and no mistake. I see I had better not let you down here again, hey? If I was you I would have another go, sir; where you find one coin, you tend to find another one. After all, it takes two to make a clink. It’s all to do with how the water’s running, you see; you never quite know for certain where the specie might turn up today.’ Again they craned as Disraeli, this time with every evidence of enthusiasm, rummaged in the heap of litter, and there was another clink and he held up a gold and diamond ring. ‘Oh my word, sir.’ Dodger reached for the ring and Disraeli pulled his hand away until he realized that was bad manners, so he allowed Dodger to handle the ring and was told, ‘Well, sir, it’s gold, that’s true. It ain’t diamonds though, just paste. Shocking, isn’t it, but there you go, sir, first time out and you’ve already earned a working man’s daily wage.’ Dodger straightened up and said, ‘I think we ought to be getting on because of the light, but maybe our young man here would like to try next time? Would you, Master Roger? You could make a day’s wages like Mister Disraeli here!’
Dodger was rewarded with a wide smile, and Disraeli, smiling just as much, said, ‘This is rather like a lucky dip, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Dodger, ‘but there aren’t many rats around at the moment, and it’s not particularly wet. I mean, you are seeing it at its best.’