Chapter 1 - WIP 2 - The Sculptor of Frog Lane

I mentioned previously that I was working on another project at the same time - alongside my Egyptian spy thriller. This one is set mostly in London in 1851 around alternative history events following on from the Great Exhibition. While it begins very real world and normal, it will eventually switch into a steampunk fantasy. I've included the full text of the draft first chapter below. Comments welcome, and if you want to read more in future, please follow on dfpiii.bsky.social or x.com/dfpiii. Or both. I'll post updates to both. 

I – Thursday, 1 May 1851
 
Charlie found the body first thing and ran up the City Road to get a copper. The other boys waited on the tow path because they had nothing better to do, but soon decided they were guarding the body and made a game of it.

The Regent’s Canal was black and still, and the man floated face down, just below the surface. He had white hair, a long black coat, and his trousers were neatly rolled up to his knees, as if he’d planned to dip himself into the canal only that far.

“What do you think happened to his feet?” asked Aidan. 

“Must have been wearing very fancy shoes,” said John.

“You wouldn’t cut off a man’s feet to steal his shoes.”

​“Of course not,” said John, but with consideration he added, “not unless they were very fancy, and he had tied the laces very tight.”

Michael used the long stick he found to guide the body back into the side of the canal. The current threatened to pull it towards the City Basin where the canal barges transferred cargo with the factories and workhouses of central London.

“Watch out,” said John with false anxiety. “He’s making a run for it!”

“I’ve got him,” said Michael.

“We should say a prayer,” said Aidan.

“We should go through his pockets,” said Michael.

“You wouldn’t rob a dead man!” said Aidan.

John shook his head and pointed up. The canal vanished into a long, dark tunnel that crossed under a good portion of the city. A handful of people had gathered on the bridge above the tunnel’s entrance. Not gentlemen, not ladies, but not the sort of people who would let a group of urchins strip an old dead man to his underclothes. Some would prevent it out of decency, others out of jealousy.

“No chance today, lads,” said John, “but that is a nice coat.”

“What do you know about nice coats?” asked Michael.

“The same thing as anyone with eyes in their head. You could live fat for a month off what he paid for that coat. Wash it in clean water, dry it out, it’s still worth something.” John’s expression was bitter as he thought about the roast beef dinners he was being denied by the watchful crowd. There was always someone in London minding other people’s business.

“Charlie said he’d get a reward for telling the police,” said Aidan.

“Yeah, well, Charlie got kicked in the head by a tinker’s horse,” said John. “He’s lucky to be alive, but he’s not lucky enough to get a farthing for finding a corpse in a canal.”

Aidan was about the same age as John – as far as either of them knew. They were alike in height and weight. On days when the wind was calm and the brown smog settled thick on the brick buildings of Islington, even someone who knew them both well might mistake one for the other. But Aidan had been on the streets in London for less than three months – through a mild spring – while John was passed six years and didn’t remember much of his life before.

“What are you doing to that gentleman?” demanded an old woman from the overlooking bridge. A mote of white spittle flew from her mouth as she spoke and vanished in the air before it reached the water’s surface.

Aidan and Michael hunched their shoulders and shuffled in place under her gaze, but John nudged them and took half a step forward so that the ragged toes of his too-big brown leather boots hung above the water. His actual toes stayed planted on the stones of the canal wall.

“Begging your pardon, ma’am,” he said. “We were debating whether, seeing as how we found the old guy in the water, we should have maritime salvage rights. Or if he belongs to her majesty like the swans do. My associate has gone to find a judge.”

A few of those assembled laughed and one man called out, “He looks like a wreck to me, son!”

“You’re a cheeky little bastard,” the old woman shouted, and seemed to have no shortage of spit to share. Her eyes were wild and never alighted in one place for but a moment. She was, by John’s estimation, not clean or sane enough to be a domestic servant; most likely she was a washer woman or had some other occupation that could be done in solitude.

“On the first two claims you’re correct, but as to the third, I can’t say that I knew my mother well enough to enquire after my father.”

John grinned up at the laughing faces. He hoped the old woman would snap back at him, and he could feel his audience wanted the same. But he also felt a physical tug on his shirt between his shoulder blades.

“Careful you don’t fall in,” said a man with a strong Scottish accent, and he pulled John back by slow inches.

“That’s him,” said Charlie. “That’s the dead man.” Charlie pointed into the water.

“Aye, so I see,” said Constable Macleod. He wore the deep blue uniform and top hat of every Scotland Yard police officer, but had a large, waxed moustache and thick sideburns that were much more unusual. A ruffled copy of yesterday’s Times of London was tucked under his arm.

“You took your time,” said John.

“What’s wrong, is he not dead anymore?” Macleod asked. With John out of the way, the constable took his newspaper and put it on the ground, then knelt onto it, reached down to the water and tugged the body close enough that he could lift the head by its white hair. He peered at the old man’s face for perhaps twenty seconds, all the while his own face stayed expressionless.

“Anybody you know?” John asked.

Macleod dropped the head back and repeated the question. “Anybody you know?”

“Course,” said John. “I killed him myself then stood around and waited for the Peelers. Got his missing feet in my pockets. Search me if you like.” A ripple of laughter caused the constable to raise his head.

“All right, clear off!” Macleod called up to the crowd. “Nothing else to see here.”

The crowd made no immediate movement to disperse, but diminished over several minutes as people remembered they had places to be and discovered there really was nothing else to see.

“You found him when? About an hour ago?” Macleod asked. He stood and returned the newspaper to its previous place, then took a pencil and a small notepad from his jacket chest pocket and began to make notes.

“Yes,” said Charlie.

“An hour and a half,” said John.

“And he was here?” Macleod pointed with his pencil to the spot where the body floated.

“Yes,” said Charlie.

“He was about ten feet inside the tunnel entrance,” said John. “Just about as far in as you can see at night. That’s where Charlie sleeps sometimes.”

“Only sometimes,” said Charlie. 

Macleod frowned and continued writing. “And did you see his feet anywhere?”

“Yes,” said Charlie.

“No,” said John, “and neither did he. We haven’t touched him except to keep him where he is.”

The Regent’s Canal was overlooked on all sides by clusters of small homes – single room and two-room flats in two-storey houses – and large, brick-built factories whose windows were often voids crossed by iron bars or covered by sack cloth or wooden shutters as often as glass. In the City Basin, the thirty or so barges tied up at night were under the care of a watchman. Just beyond the canalside were more homes and any number of taverns and inns, some of which only closed to newcomers at midnight and would disgorge their customers all through the night until they opened to the public again first thing in the morning. There was no guarantee of privacy along this stretch of water.

“He wasn’t dumped here,” John said, more to himself than to the constable.

“Aye, there’s no guarantee of privacy.”

“And it’s not as if the poor old sod walked here.”

“Aye,” said Macleod again, and his eyes went to the darkness of the canal tunnel before he put his notebook away. “Well, nothing to be done about it for the time being. Give me that stick.”

Michael handed over his body nudging tool and Macleod took control.

“You can’t mean to leave him there,” said Aidan.

“No better place for him,” Macleod said and gave the body a tentative poke. “I can’t lift him out myself. He can wait there for a few more hours until the cart shows up.”

“And he can’t take a dead body on the omnibus,” said John. “Not on a policeman’s salary.”

Macleod laughed but smothered the sound with a cough. “We might not have found him until tomorrow. Nearly every policeman in the city is at Hyde Park today.”

“That’s where we’re headed,” said Aidan.

Standing behind Macleod, Michael’s eyes went wide and he threw a threatening expression.

Macleod said, “You and every other man, woman and child in London, unless I miss my guess.”

John cocked his head. There was less noise from the city. Fewer horses. No sound from the pubs. The constable’s estimate might not be far off – perhaps everyone had taken themselves to Hyde Park, even if there was no chance of them getting into the Crystal Palace. 

The normal morning rush saw the pubs of the borough of Islington overcrowded for the first pint of the day. Almost all Londoners drank beer – about five pints a day for a woman, perhaps as much as eight pints for a man. John and his friends took what they could get.

London water wasn’t for drinking. The Thames was a sewer by the time it hit Putney and most wells weren’t much better. Unless boiled, a glass of London well water meant a week of loose bowels. Even the rain was grey and tasted of coal smoke.

If the Islington pubs were quiet, a migration had already taken place.

“Busy days mean heavy truncheons,” said Macleod. “Stay out of trouble.”

“I will,” said Charlie.

“I wasn’t talking to you, lad.”
 
* * *
 
“It’s a quid to get in,” said Michael.

“A quid!” said Aidan. “That can’t be true.”

“Just for today,” said Michael. “Just for the opening. It goes down over time.”

“When will we be able to go?” Charlie asked.

“Never!” said Michael, sounding surprised that even Charlie would raise the question. “Not if it was open for ten years – and it’s closing in the autumn.”

“Oh,” said Charlie.

The opening of the Great Exhibition was scheduled for midday, but well before they reached Hyde Park and well before opening, they encountered the milling crowds making their way there. It had been talked about for half a year. Initially, it was an impossible madness: gathering so many exhibits to be displayed in a custom-built structure made entirely of glass and iron had never been imagined or attempted. It was called hubris – even by those who did not understand the word – and surely it would be a lasting shame on the nation.

Latterly, as the building stretched out over the park, as the panes of sheet glass in place became innumerable, as whole trees were swallowed by the Crystal Palace, what had been impossible began to seem inevitable. The building, so it was said, was the biggest in the world. The largest of any kind. And it had been assembled in only a few months.

The exhibits were still a mystery, but Prince Albert – the architect of the scheme – had determined that they would embrace every aspect of science and engineering, and wonders from every part of the world. That Great Britain could command such an event was a sign of its imperial hegemony, and another shining jewel to add to its collection.

“We’re here to beg and steal,” said John. “Not to look at steam-powered knickers and Chinese false teeth.”

“What would the steam do?” asked Aidan.

“Makes them go up and down faster,” John said. “So the dollymops don’t get caught at it. A thrupenny upright plus a farthing’s worth of coal for the steam engine.”

“You have to include capital costs,” said Michael.

“Didn’t I teach you well?” John said. “Call it a joey for up against a wall, including insurance in case the Peelers turn up. And, if they don’t, you’ve got enough hot water for a cup of tea afterwards.” John used both hands to simultaneously mime having an erect penis and drinking from a teacup with his pinkie out.

“What makes the teeth Chinese?” asked Charlie, who laughed mostly because the others were laughing.

“Easy. Made of China, in China. You don’t even clean ‘em yourself – after you eat you send them down to the kitchen with the rest of the plates. You can get a really fancy set in case you need to have dinner with a duchess. Those ones have got dragons painted on them.”

“I’d really like to see those,” said Charlie.

John put his arm around Charlie’s shoulder. Charlie was a little taller than him, a little broader. Several of the local widows had taken to feeding him as if he were a pampered cat, and it was compounding.

“You’re to stick to begging,” John said, and Charlie nodded. “Who do we target for begging?”

“Nice ladies.”

“Nice young ladies with well-dressed young gentlemen. Women want men who are compassionate, and men want women. With most of these toffs, it’s not their money anyway, so they don’t care.”

“Please miss, can you spare a penny for some bread?” Charlie said, his tone well-practised.

“Bigger eyes,” John said as he released Charlie and put some distance between them. “Pretend one of your legs isn’t that good.”

“But not diseased,” said Michael.

“Maybe you broke it a few years ago,” said John. “Or you have rickets.”

Charlie listed to one side, his left knee turned towards his right, and he opened his eyes as far as they would go. He looked to John for approval.

“I don’t know why I’m trying to teach you anything. Just do whatever you normally do. For the rest of us—”

“I don’t feel comfortable stealing,” said Aidan. His voice was a whisper, even though the noise of the crowd was loud enough to drown out every word of their chatter, and nobody was paying the four boys any attention. His hands were at his sides and his knuckles shone through the dirt.

Michael looked at John, shrugged his shoulders and turned away to kick a stone down the road. Aidan had been brought into the group by John, even though Michael thought Aidan was soft. That made any foolishness on Aidan’s part John’s responsibility.

John moved close up to Aidan, so that they could feel each other’s breath, and he asked, “You feel comfortable eating?”

“I’m not a thief.” His jaw clenched and he met John’s stare.

“Man, you are gonna have to toughen up. None of us have that kind of luxury. You don’t want to? I don’t want to. Maybe you want Charlie to beg for you as well?”

Aidan was equally disgusted and embarrassed. “No, I—”

“So you want Michael to feed you?”

“I don’t mean—”

“Me, then?”

Aidan looked down at his boots, which were touching John’s. “No.”

“You’re a thief,” John said. “You’re a beggar. If a drunk sailor throws you some scratch and tells you to dance, then you’re a monkey. You’re whatever you need to be.”

“He’s right,” said Michael.

Aidan continued to look at the ground and said nothing. Charlie put a hand on his shoulder and John stepped back and continued his instructions.

“Money’s best, because the Queen’s face looks the same on all of it. Once it’s in my pocket, it’s mine. Anything other than money we can fence – but you know who’s here today? Along with Victoria and Albert and half of Scotland Yard? Ever single pickpocket in London. The supply of snuff boxes and pocket watches is going way up and nobody we know likes to hold stock.”

“So don’t steal watches?” asked Michael.

“If you can pinch a watch, good for you, but don’t expect to be happy when you get a bent shilling and a clip round the ear in payment. Remember – bide your time and—”

“Tread lightly,” Charlie and Michael said together.

“Exactly.” John smiled.

From the canal in Islington to the Great Exhibition was halfway across London, perhaps four miles. More significant than the distance was the change in class. In Islington the buildings were all made of yellow London bricks, from the dosshouses to the pubs to the merchants’ homes. As they moved west along Oxford Street and down Regent Street, the brick was increasingly hidden by white stucco facades, that gave the appearance of cut white stone without the expense, but in greater numbers were buildings of actual stone construction. As the buildings changed, the people changed.

A man in Islington might own one suit, which he would wear to dig ditches and go to church. But a man who lived at the edge of a great park might have a different outfit for each day of the week, and none of them would be suitable for work of any kind. John noticed the fashions change as people could afford better and had the time to learn what better meant. Cloth caps became top hats. Bluchers and boots became Oxford ties and dress Wellingtons.

The crowd became denser as they approached the entrance to Hyde Park. Those travelling by carriage were forced to disembark at Piccadilly and walk the rest of the way as the throng spilled out into the road all along Park Lane.

A red and white striped barrow stall had stopped on the kerbside and its owner was loudly announcing his wares – packaged fudge and butterscotch, and toffee apples on sticks. He was a higher class of barrowman than would ever make his way to Islington, his shirt was white and starched, and his hair was slicked with macassar oil, a small amount of which had melted and stained the back of his collar.

As a policeman approached, the vendor made to pick up the handles of the barrow and wheel his business away.
John nodded to Michael, who quickly stepped between the policeman and vendor, and said, “How much for two?”

“You can’t sell in the street round here,” said the policeman, ignoring Michael entirely. “Move along, and not towards the park. Park’s full.”

“Oh, come on, gov, I only want a couple of apples,” Michael protested. As he did, he stepped back so that the vendor and the policeman were both looking away from the cart. “What harm’s he doin’? Is there a law against selling toffee apples in Westminster?”

“I wasn’t even selling any apples here,” the vendor protested for the policeman’s benefit. “I just stopped to rest my arms.”

“Pull the other one,” said Michael. “Now are you going to let me buy two toffee apples or not?”

The policeman gave Michael a sharp slap on the side of his head that knocked his cap off and into the road, and he turned back to the vendor, saying, “Fuck off the pair of you. If I see that cart again today, it’ll be in my fire tonight.”

The issue of whether the policeman had any legal authority to move the barrowman on wasn’t relevant. The London constabulary were the police: the coppers (so nicknamed after their badges): the Peelers (after their founder the late Sir Robert Peel). While not randomly violent, they were also not used to urchins or barrowmen questioning them, even on issues about which they knew little – like the law.

When the policeman looked around for Michael again, perhaps to give him another slap, he saw no-one, and the barrowman trundled urgently to the east.

Around the nearest corner, John passed out three of the four toffee apples on sticks before enjoying his own, biting through the hard shell into the slightly overripe fruit underneath.

“I love a Hawker’s Mate,” said Michael, though he absently rubbed his ear, which had become scarlet.

Some of the tricks they used were learned from others and the origin of their names was lost to history. Some they believed they had invented and named themselves. A Hawker’s Mate was a versatile trick that could be done by three, two, or even one person – if they were quick. In a three person Hawker’s Mate, one made threats to a person selling, one tried to intercede on behalf of the person doing the selling, both creating a distraction while a third person pinched whatever they could. But the most common was the two-person version, where a quick reaction to the arrival of a police officer, a gangster – or really any authority figure – could be exploited.

“Sugar turns your teeth black,” said Charlie through a mouthful of apple.

“Sure,” said Michael. “But not right away.”

“That’s good.”

“He’s not coming this way,” said Aidan, who was checking round the corner, his own toffee apple untouched in his hand.

“He didn’t see anything,” said John. “Couldn’t get any fudge though, there was a guy watching on the other side of the street.”

“Yeah, but if he comes round the corner, he’d recognise Michael standing with an apple.”

“He wasn’t a runner,” said Michael. “He had fat little legs. He’s not chasing anyone for an apple.”

“And he’s not one of ours,” said John.

The Peelers had patches and John knew everyone that had an Islington beat – and he suspected that they all probably knew him by sight. He wasn’t concerned. John was amiable. He never started fights and never frightened women or horses. And most important of all – he had never been caught. Back in Islington his reputation was small, and he liked it that way. Outside of his part of London he was an anonymous face just below eye level.

“But there will be some of them here today,” said Aidan.

“Sure, but don’t introduce yourself and you’ll be grand.” John pulled the rim of his cap down slightly. “Okay, here’s as good a place as any. We split up now. Everyone meets back here at five. We wait until half-past for stragglers, then you need to make your own way.”
 
* * *
 
What impressed the people of London most was the building itself. The huge, curved roof, the apparent lightness of the structure, the ability to see through from one side to another – and wave at people. As the steel supports were relatively modest compared to the scale of the building, it seemed as though the Crystal Palace hung in space and shone in the light the way a chandelier might.

It was a great distraction.

As John moved through the crowd he tried to seem as if he were doing nothing. He was a lost boy looking for his friends or family. His eyes did not linger in any one place and he neither stayed in one spot for too long nor hurried.

Gentlemen carried their money in pocketbooks, which they kept inside their jackets and were difficult to steal. But all men usually carried some small coins in their trouser pockets, either loose or inside a coin purse. Careful study of the line of a man’s trouser could reveal if he were carrying a lot of coinage – though this was not guaranteed.

Ladies had reticules – bags that tied with drawstrings which they either wore around their wrist or carried. A few women had discrete pockets in their dresses where money could be concealed, but spotting a pocket with change in a dress was impossible.

As a general rule this meant that it was better to snatch a lady’s reticule and run or pick a gentleman’s pocket and not get noticed. In the dense crowds in Hyde Park, running meant getting caught by some well-meaning, law-abiding prick after fifty yards, and that only left stealth.

After an hour of casual fleecing, John was up more than six shillings in small coins and had to distribute the money to all his pockets to stop himself jingling when he walked. He knelt, appearing to tie his bootlaces, and pushed four silver sixpences into a worn slot in the inside of his boot. It had been a while since there had been any money in his secret stash and the press of it against his ankle felt good.

Six shillings was more than an apprentice bricklayer made in a week – which was the highest paid trade available to a boy his age. It was heavy, boring labour, since most of the work of the apprentice was carrying loads of bricks up miles of rickety ladders – and worse still, the bricklayers all hired their own sons to do it.

John stood up and casually bumped into a gentleman. Once his hand was out of the man’s pocket he immediately apologised – “Sorry, sir” – but the man did not even acknowledge him, and instead carried on his conversation. John was five steps away before he opened his hand and caught the colour of what he had taken.

Two small gold coins were nestled in his palm. One face-down bearing the royal coat of arms, and the other face-up showing the queen and printed with the words Victoria Dei Gratia. John could read a little and knew enough to recognise when the thing he couldn’t read was written in Latin. The coins were sovereigns – each was worth twenty shillings – one pound, or, in common slang, a quid. He closed his fingers tightly around the coins and buried his hand in his trouser pocket. John had never even held a gold coin before. If he had tripped and fallen forward at that moment, he would have kept his hand firmly in his pocket all the way to the ground and willingly taken the force of the fall on his face.

“It is a glasshouse and nothing more.” The voice of an elderly lady next to John brought him back to his senses. She wore a dress of lavender coloured silk and a large floral hat. Though her clothes were colourful, her expression was sour and her mouth downturned. She continued, “The gardens at Kew have one for palm trees. They heat it with hot air in the winter, which is very pleasant I’m sure, but hardly a marvel of the industrial age. I have a splendid fire at home.”

“Come auntie, you must admit it is far more impressive than Kew.” A young lady standing next to her forced a laugh. She wore a dress of pale blue which had been made for a taller woman with a fuller bust and hadn’t been altered to fit. She reminded John of Charlie, though Charlie only laughed at nothing when other people were laughing, while the young woman seemed to be trying to make other people laugh at nothing. “The Crystal Palace is, at least, much larger.”

Somewhere at the front of the crowd, Queen Victoria finished a short speech, and a military band began to play a rousing anthem. Both the older and younger ladies applauded politely, though it was clear neither had been listening.

John stepped around the older lady’s wide bustle and headed towards Hyde Park Corner where he could exit the park and wait for his friends. He did not manage another step before he felt a hand clamp firmly on his shoulder.

“You, boy!” said a man’s voice.

John tried to remain calm, turned his head and said, “Yes, sir?”

He had been apprehended by a gentleman, but not the one he had pickpocketed. He was clean shaven and wore a dark suit and matching top hat. His expression was neutral, but his eyes seemed to twinkle.

The gentleman asked, “Do you find this construction impressive?” He had a foreign accent that wasn’t French, German, Irish or Scottish – which were the four John knew well enough to identify. John felt himself being turned towards to the two ladies, who were obviously companions of the gentleman.

John smiled at the ladies and replied, “Yes, sir. Best thing to see in the whole of the park – and that’s including the ducks.”

The younger lady laughed, but the elderly lady rolled her eyes and said, “Are we really to converse with such people?”

“You do not value the opinion of your countrymen?” he asked.

“I do not value things which have no value,” she said.

“Tell me, boy,” he continued, his hand still firm on John’s shoulder. “How would you rank this Crystal Palace alongside the wonders of the ancient world? Compared to the Pyramids of Egypt, perhaps, or to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon?”

“It’s right up there, sir,” John said. He seemed expected to play the fool and he was well able to do so. “All the more impressive for being built somewhere convenient like London.”

“Built somewhere convenient?” the young lady repeated and laughed again. “Heavens.”

“I had never thought of it like that,” said the gentleman. “How many of these people will ever see the Pyramids? Easy enough to have a wonder that nobody can see. Almost like a fairy story. But to make something great that a boy in London can walk up to and put their hands on.” He said this with heavy meaning and put his finger went under the brim of John’s cap and lifted it slightly. John couldn’t help but make eye contact. “Is this not the greater achievement?”

Behind John a man’s voice said, “They must have fallen out of my pocket! Look around you, woman!”

John twitched, testing the grip on him, and the foreign gentleman smiled.

“I shall know your face if we meet again,” he said, and in that same moment he released John. “Inside, perhaps.”

“Perhaps, sir,” John said. He nodded to the ladies and tugged down the front of his cap. But now the crowd was moving against him, pressing towards the Crystal Palace rather than away. Rather than seeming conspicuous or being trampled, he allowed himself to be swept up. All the time he could somehow feel the foreign gentleman’s eyes on him, and he turned his head twice to confirm his suspicion.

Without realising it, John had joined the queue for the entrance. People shuffled themselves into an orderly line and John found himself perhaps one hundred places away from the glass doors that Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and an entourage of richly dressed people had gone through a minute earlier.

John fought against panic. There was clear open space on either side of the queue. If he stepped out of line, would the man he stole the gold sovereigns from recognise him? Would the foreign gentleman call him out as a thief?

He watched time vanish before him. He was fifty places away and when he got to the front he would be ejected anyway. Nobody was going to let a street urchin into the Great Exhibition whether he had the ticket price or not.

Of course, he wouldn’t be arrested as such. Being arrested meant being charged with a crime and hauled up before a magistrate and sentenced. John would have the shit kicked out of him by a couple of mean bastards who joined the Yard just for that kind of perk. Then he’d be taken to a workhouse, and he wouldn’t see the sky again except through bars for another four years. He’d be made to pull wire into pins or some other task that small, nimble fingers were well suited to. And he’d do it from morning to night, with food withheld if he didn’t make quota. No lawyer, no judge, no trial, no sentence – an urchin was like a stray dog; anyone who could put a lead around his neck was his owner.

Two quid had put him on a path to being a slave until he was a grown man.

“I think you may be in the wrong line,” said a robustly built and well-dressed usher who looked curiously, but not unkindly down at John from behind a small lectern serving as a ticket desk. John had run out of time and the whole of the queue stretched out behind him.

“I’m sure I saw some filthy boy behind you a minute before,” cried an outraged woman – somewhere in the queue, out of sight but within earshot. “You’ve been robbed in broad daylight!”

“Chief, you’ve got no idea,” John said. He pulled his right hand out of his pocket and used the fingers of his left hand to remove a coin from inside the fist. He dropped the gold sovereign onto the lectern. “One, please.”

The usher looked at the coin with grave seriousness, turned it over a few times and chewed on the edge of it. He lifted a pen from its resting place and made some scratchings on a piece of paper.

​“Very good, sir,” the usher concluded, and handed John a small ivory-coloured ticket bearing the day’s date. John took the ticket and trudged miserably through the entrance.