A Sly Pot of Gold
A S LY P OT OF G OLD
C HARLIE CREPT DOWN THE alley until he reached the soft glow of feeble light. Darting under the green awning and out of the rain, he looked at the neat, gilt-lettered sign on the dirt-streaked plate glass window:
THE BOOK KEEP
I. OLIVER, PROPRIETRESS
Below that were adverts that looked hand-stenciled.
A book a day keeps the bombs away.
And:
Reading books is far better than burning them.
Scrim tape had been applied to sections of the window to prevent the glass from shattering and becoming a weapon itself during a bombing. Triple-layered black curtains fairly covered most light from inside. However, the owner hadn’t pulled them all the way closed. There was a gap through which Charlie could see into the space. If an air warden came by, the shop’s owner might be given a tongue-lashing and even a caution. Yet Charlie also knew folks had gotten lax about such things.
When he peered through the gap the first things Charlie saw were books. He had been in a library before. Most recently to get out of the rain and avoid the accompanying chill and pneumonia that often followed. There, every single volume had been properly shouldered next to its neighbor.
Charlie had actually resented the clean, regimented lines of these books. Nothing in the world should be that uncluttered, he had thought. It simply did not seem right when the world itself was all sixes and sevens. Yet here teetering book stacks were haphazardly placed on the floor. In crevices and corners balls of dust rode alongside feathery cobwebs. A rickety ladder with brass rollers ran along a slender, cylindrical tube attached to shelves which bulged and flinched under the weight of leather tomes that were stitched to their wooden-framed hides, wordy ships yawing in storms on dry land. The overhead naked bulbs popped and wavered and seemed indifferent to their intended purpose.
It was then that Charlie saw the two men, who were a study in remarkable contrasts.
The first one was in his forties, tall and too thin, and harried looking, like everyone these days. His longish full hair was brown; his skin was pale, and, like Charlie’s, it had the odd freckle strewn here and there. The man wore an old, rumpled gray woolen vest, and a white shirt stained with a long day’s grime. The rolled-up sleeves revealed bony forearms spotted with thickish moles like the eraser bump on a pencil. There were also some deep burns on his skin that looked quite painful. His pants were as worn out as his vest, his shoes shabby, the heels uneven from constant wear over rumpled pavements. Rimless specs covered hazel eyes.
This gent must be the shop’s owner, I. Oliver, thought Charlie.
The other man was short and squat and had on a slouch hat, pulled low. He wore an expensive black waterproof, and new-looking stout wellies against the foul weather. He was jowly, with a bit of stubble on his weak chin. He handed the shop’s owner a packet of papers bound with black ribbon, and said something that Charlie could not hear.
The other man took the papers and put them away in a drawer that he then locked.
When the shorter man turned and headed to the door, Charlie hid behind a handy dustbin overflowing with bomb debris, of which there were thousands in the city. The man opened the door, which caused the tinkling of a bell, and stepped out. He gave a searching look right and left, making Charlie shrink down farther. Then the gent turned up his waterproof’s collar and hurried off.
Charlie waited a few moments to make certain the squat man was not coming back. He stole up to the window once more to see the shop owner bent over a fat ledger behind the counter and right next to the till. His long finger moved down the columned page as he made small tics on the paper with a pencil. After a minute or so he put the pencil down and drank from a chipped porcelain cup set next to his elbow. Beside that rested a plate holding a few slender biscuits.
Charlie eyed the biscuits as his empty belly commenced speaking to him in the form of bold protest.
Next the man picked up a curious cylindrical-looking device. Parts of the contraption seemed to rotate, because he was moving things around on it. He continued manipulating it for a few moments before returning to his pencil and ledger.
A minute later, the man lifted up a box labeled Simpkin he had forgotten about that.
He quieted the bell, scurried behind a tower of books in one corner, and waited. Momentarily, the man appeared and looked around, his eyebrows touching in confusion, his spectacled gaze bouncing around the small space. He rushed over to the drawer where he had placed the packet of papers and unlocked it. He took out the sheaf of documents and examined them. Satisfied, he locked them back up, used the lift gate on the counter to pass through, strode across the floor, turned the door latch, and then retreated the same way, disappearing back through the curtain.
Quick as a ferret, Charlie came out of hiding, grabbed the biscuits, and thrust them into his pocket. He examined the odd device that lay on the counter. The thing was wood and metal with little rotating disks on which letters were imprinted. Setting it down, he rushed over to the ancient till. He pushed one of the metal-dipped keys, pulled back the large lever, and the wooden drawer popped open like a cuckoo from a clock. Paper and coins disappeared into one of his other pockets. He also grabbed a book off the counter, figuring it might be worth something.
Charlie thought his escape had been unseen. However, as he looked back, he saw the man bracketed in the curtained doorway, his mouth open perhaps in disbelief or dismay, or both. The next instant Charlie had unlocked and flung open the door, and was sprinting down the rain-slickened alley.
He had just turned wretched defeat into splendid triumph.
It was about time.