Dodger Page 0,17
well, I am exploring the possibility that you may have one.’
That little change in his habits, which helped glue together the relationship with Solomon, meant that he didn’t – unlike some of the other toshers – have to shiver in doorways of a night, or hunker down under a piece of tarpaulin, or pay for the dreadful stinking ha’penny rope down at the flophouse. All Solomon wanted from him was a bit of company in the evenings, and occasionally the old man tactfully required Dodger’s companionship when he was going to see one of his customers and therefore carrying mechanisms, jewellery and other dangerously expensive things. In the vicinity, news of Dodger’s mercurial personality had got about, and so he and Solomon could travel entirely unmolested.
As a job, Dodger thought Solomon’s was pretty good. The old boy made small things – usually things to replace things, precious and treasured things that had gone missing. Last week Dodger had seen him repair a very expensive musical box, which was full of gears and wires. The whole thing had been damaged when some workmen had dropped it when the owners were moving house, and he had watched the old man handle every single piece as if it was something special – cleaning, shaping, and gently bending, slowly, as if there was all the time in the world. Some ornamental ivory inlays had been broken on the rosewood cabinet and Solomon replaced them with little bits of ivory from his small store, polishing it up so neatly he said that the lady he had done it for had given him half a crown over and above his normal charge.
OK, sometimes some of Dodger’s chums called him shabbos goy, but he noticed that he ate better than any of them, and cheaper too, since among the market stalls Solomon could haggle even a Cockney until the man gave in – and Heaven help any stallholder who sold Solomon short weight, bad bread or rotting apples, let alone a boiled orange and all the other tricks of the trade, including the wax banana. When you took into account the good and healthful eating, the arrangement was not to be sneezed at, and Dodger never liked to catch a cold.
When Jacob and his sons had got through with the dance of the flying pants, shirts, socks, vests and shoes, they stood back and beamed at one another in the knowledge of a job well done, and then Jacob said, ‘Well now, I do not know. Upon my word, what magicians we are, ain’t we? What we have created here, my sons, is a gentleman, fit for any society if they don’t mind a slight smell of camphor. But it’s that or moths, everybody knows, even Her Majesty herself, and right now I reckon, my dears, that if she walked in this door she would say, “Good afternoon, young sir, don’t I know you?”’
‘It’s a bit tight in the crotch,’ said Dodger.
‘Then don’t think naughty thoughts until it stretches,’ said Jacob. ‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do. Seeing as it’s you I will throw in this excellent hat, just your size if you padded it out a bit so it ain’t covering your ears, and I reckon the style will soon be all the rage again.’ Jacob stood back, mightily pleased with the transformation he had achieved. He put his head on one side and said, ‘You know, young man, what you need now is a very good haircut and then you will have to poke the ladies off with a stick!’
‘Solomon helps me cut it when it gets too hot and I want things to cool off a bit,’ said Dodger, upon which Jacob gave the kind of explosive snort that only an offended Jewish tradesman could make, even more expressive than a Frenchman on a very bad day. Generally speaking, if it had to be written down, it would begin with something like ‘phooieu’ and end with a certain amount of spittle in the general vicinity.
Jacob wailed, ‘That’s not a haircut, my boy. You look like you’ve been sheared! As though you’ve just got out of the clink! If Queen Victoria saw you then, she’d probably call out the runners. Take my advice, next time go to a proper barber! Take the advice of your old friend Jacob.’
And so, in company with the dog Onan, who was still optimistically carrying his bone in his jaws, Dodger walked back into the world. Of course, shonky was