Pickpocket's Apprentice Read Free

the bizarre turn his life had taken, that magistrates—those personages who, according to parental teaching as well as personal experience, desired nothing more than to clap one into Newgate or send one to the gallows—were suddenly calling him friend and buying him dinner.
    Mr. Colquhoun inquired as to Mr. Granger’s business, and the two men were soon immersed in an incomprehensible discussion as to the disadvantages of being obliged to purchase coal in Newcastle by weight while selling it in London by volume. Pickett very quickly lost whatever interest he might have had in the subject (which was not much, in any case), and occupied himself in taking stock of his surroundings, gazing in awestruck fascination at walls adorned with genuine imitation Old Masters and bookcases filled with leather-bound volumes so new (and so unlikely to be read) that most of their pages were still uncut. So engrossed was he in this exercise that he did not notice the room’s fourth occupant, a pert lass very nearly his own age who stared at him with scarcely less interest than he showed the paintings on the walls.
    “What happened to you ?”
    Pickett turned toward the direction of the high-pitched query, and found himself—or at least his nose—being steadily regarded by a pair of coal-black eyes set in a piquant heart-shaped face.
    “I asked too many nosy questions,” he retorted, uncomfortably aware not only of his disfiguring injuries, but also of the shabbiness of his clothing, and of how out of place both must appear in this prosperous household .
    “John, this is Miss Sophy Granger,” Mr. Colquhoun put in quickly, lest the boy spoil his chances by insulting the daughter of his potential benefactor.
    “Sophy,” her father said, “why don’t you take young Mr.—Pickett, was it?—down to the kitchen for a bite to eat while we old men talk?”
    Sophy Granger rose in a swirl of muslin skirts and, with a coy smile in Pickett’s direction, invited him to follow her. She preceded him down the stairs to the kitchen, where she set out two dainty china plates and a silver tray bearing half a dozen cucumber sandwiches cut into tiny triangles.
    “We had some left over from tea,” she explained, pushing the tray toward Pickett.
    He stared at the delicate china in front of him, fearing he had only to touch it to shatter it into a million pieces.
    “Well, go ahead,” she urged impatiently, when he showed no signs of availing himself of the Grangers’ hospitality. “What’s the matter with you?”
    He took a deep breath, and came to a decision. He picked up one of the sandwiches very gingerly, lest he should accidentally break the plate beneath it, and took a bite, wrinkling his nose at the unfamiliar taste. No disaster occurred to either plate or palate, and so, emboldened, he stuffed the rest of the sandwich into his mouth, then snatched up the remaining five sandwiches and added them to his pockets along with the bread from the pub.
    “What an odd creature you are!” declared Sophy, her eyes growing larger with every sandwich that disappeared into his pocket. “Why are you—”
    Before she could form the question, her father’s voice called down the stairs. “Mr. Pickett, can you come here?”
    Suddenly Pickett wished he had followed the magistrate’s advice regarding the speed with which he’d disposed of his dinner, for the ham and cheese he’d eaten in the public house demonstrated an alarming inclination to revolt. He glanced back at the table to make sure he hadn’t unwittingly broken the china or dented the silver, then, reassured on this head, left the kitchen without a backward glance for the girl, and started up the stairs.
    Here he discovered both magistrate and merchant seated side by side on the sofa, each smiling so benignly at him that he could only assume Mr. Colquhoun’s proposal had been well received.
    “John, Mr. Granger has been telling me he needs another pair of hands to deliver coal to his