Dodger by Terry Pratchett Read Free Book Online

‘white’ shirts in front of him and then whisking them away before the next tailor was magically there, holding up a pair of highly suspect pants. Clothes spun past, never to reappear, but never mind because here came some more! It was: ‘Try these – oh dear no’; or, ‘How about this? Certain to fit – oh no, never mind, plenty more for a hero!’
    But he hadn’t been a hero, not really. Dodger remembered that day three years ago when he had been having a really bad afternoon on the tosh, and it had started to rain, and he had heard that somebody else had picked up a sovereign just ahead of him so he was feeling angry and irritable and wanted to take all that out on somebody. But when he was back on the foggy streets, there had been two geezers kicking the crap out of somebody on the pavement. Quite possibly, in those days, when his temper was more liable to explode into a spot of boots and fists, if some little wheel in his head had turned the wrong way, he might have helped
them
, just to get it out of his system. But as it happened the wheel turned the other way, towards the thought that two geezers kicking an old cove who was lying on the ground groaning were pox-ridden mucksnipes. So he had waded in and laid it on with a trowel, just like last night, didn’t he indeed, panting and kicking until they cried uncle and he was too tired to chase them.
    It had been a madness born of frustration and hunger, although Solomon said it was the hand of God, which Dodger thought was pretty unlikely since you didn’t see God in those streets very often. Then he had helped the old man home, even if he was an
ikey mo
, and Solomon had brewed up some of his soup, thanking Dodger fulsomely the whole time. Since the old boy lived by himself and had a bit of space to spare in his tenement attic, it all worked out; Dodger ran the occasional errand for Solomon, scrounged wood for his fire and, when possible, pinched coal off the Thames barges. In exchange, Solomon gave Dodger his meals, or at least cooked whatever it was Dodger had
acquired
, coming up with dishes much better than Dodger had ever seen in his life.
    He also got much better prices for the stuff Dodger came back with from the toshing; the drawback of this was that the old Jew would always,
always
ask him if what he was buying was stolen. Well, stuff from the sewers was definitely OK – everybody knew that. It was money down the drain, lost to humanity, on its way to the sea and out of human ken. Toshers, of course, didn’t count as humanity – everybody knew that too. But in those days Dodger was not above a bit of thievery, getting stuff you could say was extremely dodgy and totally not, as Solomon would say, ‘kosher’.
    Every time the old man asked him if this stuff was just from the toshing, Dodger said yes, but he could tell by the look in Solomon’s eyes when the old man thought that he was not telling the truth. The worst of it was that Solomon’s eyes invariably got it right. He would take the stuff anyway, but things would be a little bit chilly in the attic room for a while.
    So now Dodger generally nicked only stuff that could be burned , drunk or eaten, such as the stuff on market stalls and other low-hanging fruit. Things had warmed up after that, and besides, Solomon read the newspapers down at the synagogue, and occasionally there would be sad little pieces in the Lost and Found column from somebody who had lost their wedding ring or some other piece of jewellery. And it was jewellery that was more to be valued, well, because it
was
the wedding ring, wasn’t it, and not just a certain amount of gold. There were often the magic words ‘Reward to finder’, and with a certain amount of careful negotiation, Solomon pointed out, you could get rather more for it than you would get from a fence. Besides, you would never take it to a kosher jeweller, because they would set the police on you even though you’d merely ‘found’ it, not stolen it.