Infernal Devices - KW Jeter [16]
So deep were my musings that the pangs of hunger reminded me of the engagement to which I was committed for that same evening. One of Clerkenwell's more prosperous watchmakers (that prosperity owed more to the cheapness of his goods than to any other quality), whose snobbishness made him anxious to associate with one bearing my renowned father's name, had renewed his invitation to me. The opportunity of a meal beyond that afforded by my meagre larder and Creff's slight culinary skill enabled me to endure the man's stultifying company.
Leaving Creff, armed with the broom handle and the kitchen-knife of which I had relieved him earlier, in vigilant guard over my shop and home, I made my way the short distance to my colleague's residence.
Nothing in the man's conversation, or that of his wife, intruded upon the continuous hidden flow of my thoughts. I was able to maintain a fiction of polite society with a few appreciative comment, a murmured "Oh?" or "Indeed" over the boiled potatoes, while all the while the spectral figures of the day's drama trod the stage and declaimed their lines inside the theatre of my skull.
Only when my host and I were draining a resinous Oporto at the edge of the fire, did his comments enter my consciousness.
"Peculiar thing – eh? – these street costers – most peckuliar." he poured himself another tumblerful. "Peddle the damnedest stuff. Never seen the like."
"Pardon?" Perhaps I had finally grown weary of turning the thin pack's cards over in my mind. I emerged from my thoughts to hear his oration on the London Street vendors.
"The other day – just yesterday, it was–" He leaned forward to impart this confidence. "I was in the Tottenham Court Road with my little daughter." (I knew the child, a wretched pug-nosed creature.) "An old Irish woman, dirty as a pig, selling dolls from a basket, approached us. 'Shure they're bhutiful dolls,' she says." He imitated the accent with mocking scorn. "'Shuted for them angels of the worruld,' meaning my daughter. With that sort of blandishments, soon enough my little Sally must have one of the wretched things." (I had often heard the child in the street outside my shop, whining for some gimcrack or lolly.) "The old witch wanted fourpence – can you credit it? – for one of the things, and eager enough she was to sell one, too, until my Sally sees a few wrapped in tissue at the bottom of the basket, and says she wants one of those. Then damned if the woman doesn't go all coy on me, refusing to bring one of the bottom ones out, saying they weren't 'shuted' for such a fine child and such-like, until my Sally was near choleric to have one. I finally had to pay sixpence to entice the woman to hand it over – and a fine show of reluctance she made, too, even then! – and when she had scuttled away with her basket, and my Sally unwrapped the doll, damned if she didn't scream and drop the thing on the street! I'm sure it's quite the ugliest creation possible, and a wicked joke to sell for the hands of a child." His broad face was red from the port and indignation, as he stood up and opened the doors of his writing cabinet. "Here the thing is – see for yourself."
I took the object he thrust towards me, and with but small curiosity