The Truth

'You talking to me about knocking back? Don't know what a tosheroon is, do you?' he said. The dwarf shrugged.

'Yes. I do,' said William. There's several meanings, but I think you're referring to a big caked ball of mud and coins, such as you might find in some crevice in an old drain where the water forms an eddy. They can be quite valuable.'

'What? You've got hands on you like a girl,' said Harry, so surprised that the cigar momentarily drooped. 'How come you know that?'

'I like words, Mr King.'

'I started out as a muckraker when I was three,' said Harry, pushing his chair back. 'Found me first tosheroon on day one. O' course, one of the big kids nicked it off me right there. And you tell me about being knocked back? But I had a nose for the job even then. Then I--'

They sat and listened, William more patiently than Good-mountain. It was fascinating, anyway, if you had the right kind of mind, although he knew a lot of the story; Harry King told it at every opportunity.

Young Harry King had been a mudlark with vision, combing the banks of the river and even the surface of the turbid Ankh itself for lost coins, bits of metal, useful lumps of coal, anything that had some value somewhere. By the time he was eight he was employing other kids. Whole stretches of the river belonged to him. Other gangs kept away, or were taken over. Harry wasn't a bad fighter, and he could afford to employ those who were better.

And so it had gone on, the ascent of the King through horse manure sold by the bucket (guaranteed well stamped-down) to rags and bones and scrap metal and household dust and the famous buckets, where the future really was golden. It was a kind of history of civilization, but seen from the bottom looking up.

153

'You're not a member of a Guild, Mr King?' said William, during a pause for breath.

The cigar travelled from one side to the other and back quite fast, a sure sign that William had hit a nerve.

'Damn Guilds,' said its owner. They said I should join the Beggars! Me! I never begged for nothin', not in my whole life! The nervel But I've seen 'em all off. I won't deal with no Guild. I pay my lads well and they stand by me.'

'It's the Guilds that are trying to break us, Mr King. You know that. I know you get to hear about everything. If you can't sell us paper, we've lost.'

'What'd I be if I broke a deal?' said Harry King. 'This is my tosheroon, Mr King,' said William. 'And the kids who want to take it off me are big.'

Harry was silent for a while and then lumbered to his feet and crossed to the big window.

'Come and look here, lads,' he said.

At one end of the yard was a big treadmill, operated by a couple of golems. It powered a creaking endless belt which crossed most of the yard. At the other end, several trolls with broad shovels fed the belt from a heap of trash that was itself constantly refilled by the occasional cart.

Lining the belt itself were golems and trolls and even the occasional human. In the flickering torchlight they watched the moving debris carefully. Occasionally a hand would dart out and pitch something into a bin behind the worker.

'Fish heads, bones, rags, paper... I got twenty-seven different bins so far, including one for gold and silver, 'cos you'd be amazed what gets thrown away by mistake. Tinkle, tinkle, little spoon, wedding ring will follow soon... That's what I used to sing to my little girls. Stuff like your paper of news goes in bin six, Low Grade Paper Waste. I sells most of that to Bob Holtely up in Five and Seven Yard.'

'What does he do with it?' said William, noting the 'Low Grade'.

'Pulps it for lavatory paper,' said Harry. 'The wife swears by it.

Pers'n'ly I cut out the middle man.' He sighed, apparently oblivious

of the sudden sag in William's self-esteem. 'Y'know, sometimes I

154

stand here of an evenin' when the line is rumbling and the sunset is shinin' on the settlin' tanks and, I don't mind admitting it, a tear comes to my eye.'

'To tell you the truth, it comes to mine, too, sir,' said William.

'Now then, lad... when that kid nicked my first tosheroon, I didn't go around complaining, did I? I knew I'd got an eye for it, see? I carried on, and I found plenty more. And on my eighth birthday I paid a couple of trolls to seek out the man who'd pinched my first one and slap seven kinds of snot out of him. Did you know that?'

'No, Mr King.'

Harry King stared at William through the smoke. William felt that he was being turned over and examined, like something found in the trash.

'My youngest daughter, Hermione... she's getting married at the end of next week,' said Harry. 'Big show. Temple of Offler. Choirs and everything. I'm inviting all the top nobs. Effie insisted. They won't come, o' course. Not for Piss Harry.'

The Times would have been there, though,' said William. 'With coloured pictures. Except we go out of business tomorrow.'

'Coloured, eh? You get someone to paint 'em in, do you?'