“The question,” interrupted the clown, “is whether you’re susceptible to street fright. I’m not talking about caperings in a playhouse.”
“Oh? What, then, street performing? Well—”
“Yes,” said the clown patiently, “the subtlest of street performances—begging. We’ll write you a role, and then depending on what… sacrifices you’re willing to make, you can earn up to a pound a day.”
The realization that what he’d thought was flattery was just a clinical evaluation of his ability to evoke pity struck Doyle like a slap across the face. “Begging?” Anger made him dizzy. “Well, thank you,” he said tightly, getting to his feet, “but I’ve got honest employment, selling onions.”
“Yes, I observed your aptitude for the job. On your way, then—but when you change your mind, ask anyone in the East End where Horrabin’s Punch show is playing.”
“I won’t change my mind,” said Doyle, leaving the booth. He walked away, and didn’t look back until he had reached the edge of the long wharf paralleling the street. Horrabin, once again on stilts, was striding away, pulling behind him a wagon that was apparently the booth itself, collapsed and folded up. He shuddered, and turned away to his left, toward the quays, looking for Chris and Meg’s rowboat.
It was gone. There were fewer boats now along the quays that projected out into the river, and the water was dotted with boats sailing away east and west—what’s the problem, Doyle thought worriedly, the market can’t be closing, it’s only mid-morning—and he could see a rowboat several hundred yards out that might have been the one with Chris and Meg and Sheila in it.
“Hey!” he tried to yell, and was instantly embarrassed at how weak his voice was—even on the next quay over they couldn’t have heard him. “All right, what’s the difficulty?” Doyle turned around and saw the policeman who’d given him the unfriendly eye a few minutes before. “What’s the time, please, sir?” he asked the policeman, trying to swallow his vowels the way everyone else was doing.
The officer yanked a watch on a chain out of his waistcoat pocket, cocked an eyebrow at it and put it away. “Coming hard on eleven. Why?”
“Why are they all leaving?” Doyle waved a hand at the boats scattered across the face of the river.
“It’s nearly eleven o’clock, isn’t it,” the officer answered, speaking very clearly as though he thought Doyle might be drunk. “And it’s Sunday, you’ll be interested to learn.”
“The market closes at eleven on Sundays, is what you’re saying?”
“You’ve stated the case. Where are you from? That’s no Surrey or Sussex accent.”
Doyle sighed. “I’m from America—Virginia. And though I”—he dragged a hand across his forehead—”though I will be doing fine as soon as a friend of mine arrives in the city, I’m destitute now. Where is there a charitable institution that might give me food and a bed until I can get my… affairs in order?”
The policeman frowned. “There’s a workhouse by the slaughterhouses in Whitechapel Street; they’ll give you food and lodging for helping tan hides and drag out the offal bins.”
“A workhouse, you say.” Doyle remembered the way Dickens was to portray the places. “Thanks.” He started to slouch away.
“Just a moment,” called the policeman. “If you’ve got any money on your person, let me see it.”
Doyle dug into his pocket for the six pennies and held them out on his palm.
“Very well, I can’t take you up for vagrancy now. But perhaps I’ll see you about this evening.” He touched his helmet. “Good day.”
Returning to Thames Street, Doyle expended half his fortune on a plate of vegetable soup and a trowelful of mashed potatoes. It tasted wonderful, but left him at least as hungry as before, so he spent his last three cents on another order of the same. The vendor even let him have a cup of cold water to wash it down.
Policemen were walking up and down the street, calling, “Close ‘em up now, day of rest, eleven o’clock it is, close ‘em up,” and Doyle, a genuine vagrant now, was careful to stay out of their way.
A man of about his own age was striding along with a bag of fish in one arm and a pretty girl on the other, and Doyle, telling himself just this once, forced himself to step into the man’s path.
“Excuse me, sir,” he said hastily. “I find myself in a distressing—”
“Get to the point, fellow,” interrupted the man impatiently. “You’re a beggar?”
“No. But I was robbed last night, and I haven’t a penny, and—I’m an American, and all my luggage and papers are gone, and… I’d like to solicit employment or borrow some money.”
The girl looked sympathetic. “Give the poor man something, Charles,” she said. “Since we’re not going to church.”
“What ship did you arrive on?” Charles asked sceptically. “That’s no American accent I ever heard.”
“The, uh. Enterprise,” Doyle answered. In his confused fumbling for a name he’d almost said Starship Enterprise.
“You see, my dear, he’s a fraud,” said Charles proudly. “There may be an Enterprise, but no such ship has landed here lately. There could conceivably be a stray Yankee still about from the Blaylock last week, but then,” he said, turning cheerfully to Doyle, “you didn’t say the Blaylock, did you? You shouldn’t try a line like that on a man in the shipping trade.” Charles looked around the thinning crowd. “Plenty of constables about. I’ve half a mind to turn you in.”
“Oh, let him be,” sighed the girl. “We’re late anyway, and he’s clearly in some sort of distressed circumstances.”
Doyle nodded gratefully to her and hurried away. The next person he approached was an old man, and he was careful to say that he’d arrived on the Blaylock. The old man gave him a shilling, and added an admonition that Doyle should be similarly generous to other beggars if he ever found himself with money. Doyle assured him that he would.
A few moments later, when Doyle was leaning against the brick wall of a public house, debating whether he dared drown his embarrassment and apprehension by spending some of his new-won wealth on a glass of beer, he was startled to feel a tug at his pant leg; and he nearly cried out when he looked down and saw a ferociously bearded man, legless and sitting on a little cart, staring up at him.
“What dodge are you working and who are you with?” the man demanded in an operatically deep voice.
Doyle tried to move away, but the man tightened his clutch on the corduroy pants and the cart rolled after Doyle for a pace or two like a little trailer. When Doyle halted—for people were staring—the man repeated his sentence.
“I’m not working any dodge and I’m not with anybody,” Doyle whispered furiously, “and if you don’t let go of me I’ll run off the wharf into the river!”
The bearded man laughed. “Go ahead, I’ll wager I can swim farther than you can.” Seeing the breadth of shoulder under the man’s black coat, Doyle despairingly guessed that was true. “Now I saw you hit up those two, and you got something from the second one. You might be a new recruit of Captain Jack’s, or you might be one of Horrabin’s crew, or you might be freelance. Which is it?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about—Get away from me or I’ll shout for a constable.” Once again Doyle felt ready to burst into tears, for he could imagine this creature never letting go, but rolling angrily along behind him for the rest of his life. “I’m not with anyone!”
“That’s what I thought.” The legless man nodded. “You’re apparently new to the city, so I’ll just give you some advice—freelance beggars can take their chances east or north of here, but Billingsgate and Thames Street and Cheapside are staked out for either Copenhagen Jack’s lads or the vermin Horrabin runs. You’ll find the same sort of arrangements west of St. Paul’s. Now you’ve been warned off by Skate Benjamin, and if you’re seen freelancing in the East End’s main streets again you’ll be… well, frankly, pal,” Skate said, not unkindly, “you’ll be rendered unfit for any employment save begging. So go on, I saw silver and I should take it from you—and if you say I couldn’t I’ll be forced to prove I could—but you do look like you need it. Go!”