Printer's Devil (9780316167826) Read Free

virtually every time I went to see her and, although I always made faces pretending I was
     bored of her compliments, I actually liked it. This piece of flattery about my eyes was nearly always followed up by another
     comment which she obviously thought rather clever; and, sure enough, she trotted it out again today. “Printer’s devil, they
     calls you,” she said, “but sometimes I have a hard time deciding if you’re devil or angel, Maaster Mog. Devil or angel!” And
     she went off into the back room, chuckling, to get the food.

    I sat down to wait, and Lash spread himself out under a table. I watched Tassie moving briskly about behind the two great
     big polished pump handles where she pulled the beer. She always kept a cloth by them so that, whenever they got too grubby
     from all that pulling, she could wipe them down and they’d be as shiny as ever. “The shiniest taaps in Clerkenwell,” she always
     claimed, “and if you can show me shinier in all London, well I’d like to see ’em. See your face in ’em, you can, and it’ll
     never be otherwise, not while I’m on this good earth.” You certainly
could
see your face in them, but they were such a funny shape that when you looked in them your face appeared extraordinarily long
     and bendy, as if someone had taken you by the topmost hairs on your head and yanked until you were stretched out like a piece
     of dough.
    “I’ve been making a poster,” I told Tassie as she cut me some rich pink ham off a waxy joint, “about a Cockburn.”
    “Lovely,” she said, “only what if I was to tell you, Maaster Mog, I ain’t sure as I know what a Cockburn might be.”
    “Cockburn’s a —“ I lowered my voice in case the empty room might be harboring unwanted ears. “Cockburn’s the name of a convict!”
     I hissed, feeling pleased with myself. “Fellow’s escaped from the New Prison and he’s on the loose. Horrible ugly man! Eyeslike — like a rat,” I said, watching a pink little nose push its way into the taproom through a hole near a chair-leg, take
     one look at Lash, and promptly whisk itself back into the dark again.
    “I’ll know ’im,” said Tassie, “everyone says Tassie’s the best judge of character in Clerkenwell. If he comes into this ‘stablishment
     he’ll soon know he’s made a mistake.” The flour from the bread she was wrapping up made her sneeze, and a cloud of flour-dust
     flew up and settled gradually on her polished taps, causing her to swear under her breath and reach for the cloth to wipe
     them. “What’s he done anyway, to get himself in jail to start with?”
    “I don’t know,” I said, “but he’s Very Dangerous. It says so on the poster. It’s got a picture of his face on, all ugly and
     mean. Mr. Cramplock reckons he’s murderous.”
    “Well, I hope he don’t murder us,” Tassie said through a mouthful of ham, “or who’ll keep the Doll’s Head noddin’ and the
     print shop printin’? It’s more work the pair of us do, Maaster Mog, than any other body in this city, and if we was to go
     there’d be a fair ewe and cry.” She popped another wedge of ham into her mouth.
    “Here, don’t eat our ham,” I told her.
    “‘Taint your ham yet, it’s mine, till you’ve paid for it,” she countered, “and I’ll do what I likes with me own ham, Maaster
     Mog. I ain’t no thief, Maaster Mog,and you’ll never catch me in the New Prison, not this year nor any other. More likely to be in there yourself afore you’ve
     growed up, barrel of mischief that you are.” I didn’t feel it was quite fair of her to call me a barrel. Most of the time
     she was going on about how I was all skin and bone, and how no one could see me when I turned sideways. “Here,” she said,
     “seen as you’re a growin’ lad, you drink this here and then take some back with you for old Clamprock.”
    “Cramplock,” I corrected her, taking the glass she passed me.
    “Oh, full of argument you are tonight,” she