The man named Phillips looked Newman over. “Yes, those pants don’t really fit you, do they? Wait here. I need to go on-line to get a valuation. It shouldn’t take more than a minute or two. I want to be fair.”
Newman smiled. He was happy that he had come to a jeweller who would be fair. According to his father, most jewellers in Dingley Dell were not fair as the general rule, save the Fagins. Perhaps this man was a Beyonder version of Herbert Fagin.
It would come later to me what happened when the jeweller named Phillips went back into his private office. I would learn later exactly what was done and said there: that the old man picked up the instrument, which was called a telephone, and punched its buttons to put himself in touch with another person to be found elsewhere in the town of Jersey Shore, a woman by the name of Ruth Wolf.
Here is what the jeweller said to Ruth Wolf through the telephone instrument and in a voice made very quiet so that the boy standing outside in the showroom shouldn’t hear: “Hello, Ruth. This is Phillips. The kid’s here — the one they’ve been looking for. I’m almost positive. No, I didn’t ask questions to confirm it; I’m going with my gut. He’s wearing some other kid’s clothes — they’re almost falling off of him, and he’s got a Geneva hunting watch he’s obviously been carrying around with him since he left. What do you want me to do? Uh huh. No, I don’t want to lose him, but I don’t want him to get too suspicious. I’m going to give him some money and then ask if he’s hungry. He looks like he could eat. I’ll suggest that he get himself something at Penny’s. You okay with that? I’ll call you back on your cell if he decides to pass up the diner and head off somewhere else. Otherwise, get yourself over to Penny’s as fast as you can. Where are you? Well, hurry the hell up. I don’t want Caldwell or any of his men to get to him before you do.”
Phillips emerged from his office, with money in hand for Newman.
“You’ve got quite a prize there, son. You’re sure you want to give it up?”
Newman nodded.
“Well, I think it’s worth at least a hundred and fifty dollars.”
Phillips told the currency upon the counter and then picked it up and placed it into Newman’s hands.
Newman stared at the paper money, wondering if the jeweller was giving him too little, but knowing that anything he said along these lines might betray the fact that he was not a citizen of the Outland. For all Newman knew one-hundred-and-fifty dollars could be worth nothing more than one-hundred-and-fifty mil in Dingley Dell currency—barely enough money to buy a loaf of bread. Newman needed a frame of reference. His eyes sought and then found some jewellry on display within the glass case next to him. There was a ring for sale priced at “$550” and a necklace for “$750.” Newman calculated that “$” must be the sign for “dollar,” and that the dollar must be on some par with the Dinglian pound. If such were the case, then he was not getting enough money for his watch and would have to bargain with the old man.
Newman coughed and cleared him throat and then as he had once seen his mother’s intermittently depleted brother Leicester do in the presence of a pawnbroker in Milltown’s East End, rolled his eyes and cocked his head and said, “Do you take me for a fool, governor? This watch is worth treble that amount and you and I both know it. Now, if you do not give me something in the vicinity of its market value, I shall have to take my business elsewhere.”
Phillips stared at the Dinglian boy, knowing now for certain that he was a Dinglian boy, but not wishing to give this important fact away. He chuckled. “You drive a hard bargain,” he said.
Newman grinned. This was exactly the reply that his maternal uncle had received upon saying the very same thing when there was a silver snuffbox at issue. Some things, Newman conjectured at that very moment, are no different outside the Dell as within. When it comes to buying and selling and trading, each man seeks to get the better of his trading partner. Perhaps it was simply a part of universal human nature.
Phillips the jeweller told out another three hundred dollars (and still considered that he had got the better deal, for he could resell the watch for several thousand dollars to one of the antique watch collectors with whom he did business).
As he had mentioned to the woman named Ruth Wolf with whom he had just spoken through the conduit of the telephone apparatus, Phillips asked if Newman was hungry, and Newman owned that he was. So Phillips directed the boy to Penny’s “Diner” where he could get himself a good chicken sandwich. The suggestion sounded quite appetising to Newman, whose stomach continued to growl even after eating the throwaway meat sandwich and the fried potato sticks.
The transaction now completed, Newman pocketed his gain and left the shop feeling flush and hopeful. He didn’t notice the jeweller lingering at the door to make certain that Newman didn’t pass by the place where some woman named Penny invited people to dine with her for a price.
To the jeweller’s satisfaction, Newman stepped inside the restaurant that had been recommended to him. He took a seat at one of the tables and read through the menu and then asked for a chicken sandwich, as the jeweller had suggested he should, and a lemonade, which sounded as if it should taste as good as had the orange juice he’d imbibed two mornings ago, and then something called “onion rings,” because he was curious to know what such things could be. Because he was so excited about his first restaurant meal in the Outland, Newman did not even mind the odd look that the waitress gave him. Perhaps she thought him strange because of the dirty, baggy clothes he was wearing, or the fact that he sat up so straight in his chair (all Dinglian children having been taught to avoid a drooping posture for it was exemplary of rough manners).
The chop-house (for it most resembled one of the chop-houses of Milltown’s East End, except that there was more glass and more light, and the tables were shiny and metallic and there were bright colours all about) was fairly empty at this late afternoon hour and for this reason it was quiet save the faint sound of a little music playing. The music came from someplace Newman could not determine, and it sounded a bit cacophonous to his Dinglian ears. He wondered if there was a sound box somewhere about, like the sound box that had produced the voice in the Ryersbach dine-in kitchen.
Newman adjudged his sandwich to be most tasty and he enjoyed the deep-fried loops called onion rings, which were crispy and flavourable, though quite salty (as he was discovering all Outlander food to be). The lemonade was sweet, yet also sour, just as he had predicted. All in all, Newman quickly concluded that this first Outland meal procured solely through his own efforts was really quite good, and that he would not mind having another one just like it as he made his way back to Dingley Dell.
Ruth Wolf entered the restaurant quite breathless, though she tried not to give the picture of one who had trotted nearly all the way from where she had spoken to the jeweller Phillips. The young woman, who looked to be in her mid-twenties, greeted the waitress as if the two were old friends and seated herself at the table next to Newman’s.
Newman glanced up at her as she sat down and thought that he had seen her somewhere before. The puzzled look on Newman’s face gave Miss Wolf all the information that she required. She rose from her chair and moved to sit across the table from Newman.
“You think that you know me, don’t you?” she asked, pulling a strand of her long red hair away from her grey-emerald eyes.
“I’m not sure if I know you or not,” said Newman, whose hand was cupped round the glass of lemonade but was now staid from lifting the beverage to his lips.