Moriarty by John Gardner

the wall, they all had a good view of the door, ready to scrutinize any customer who entered, and they began talking about how good it was to be back in London. “You could put me down in the Smoke and I’d know where I was in minutes,” Spear told them.
    â€œYea, by the smell of soot and smoke,” Ember said.
    â€œSame for me in Nanjing,” Lee Chow added. “It smell highly of pork. Ve-iy pungent, pork on the butcher stall in market.”
    â€œRaw meat can niff when it wants to,” Spear agreed.
    The man reading his paper asked if they were off a ship, and Spear gave him the fish eye. “In a way. Who’s asking?”
    â€œOh, I’m nobody. Just heard your Chink friend talking about China, so, naturally I wondered.”
    â€œWe’ve been out of the country for a while, but we’re back now,” Ember said with stunningly obvious finality.
    â€œI remember this pub from when I was a nipper,” Spear told them. “I used to do the shivering dodge round here with my sister, Violet.”
    â€œWhat is shivering dodge, Bel’t?” asked Lee Chow.
    â€œWorked best in cold weather.” Spear smiled as if looking back through the tunnel of his memory. “We’d come out in rags. Hardly anything covering us. Nothing on our feet. The trick is to stand there and look pathetic. And shiver of course. Mind you have to do it near a pub and where there are plenty of people about. You stand there, looking miserable and shivering like a leaf in the breeze. Always worked.”
    Ember gave a dry little laugh. “They still do it, kids do it in winter. I seen ’em. Fair brings tears to the eyes if it’s done right.”
    Lee Chow laughed. “Shivering dodge,” he said.
    â€œEventually, if you stand there—”
    â€œShivering—”
    â€œYea, shivering, well, some person, usually a woman, she’ll say, ‘Ho, Lord love us. Look here, Charles’”—he was doing a posh voice now, exaggerated and quite funny, moving his hands, fluttering them around like a woman might. “‘Ho, my goodness me! Ho dear, ho dear! This child. Ho my. Child, does your mother know you’re out in this cold weather?’… ‘Ain’t got no muvver, miss.’… ‘Your father then?’…’Ain’t got no favver. Only me and me little sister in the whole world.’…’Ho my poor child.’ And if you’re lucky she’d get her husband, or her gent, to take you to the pub and give you some bread and cheese and a pint of porter to warm you, maybe there’d be a bowl of hot soup ‘n’ all—nip of brandy, if you were working well. Sometimes you’d even come away with some money. Sixpence. Shilling maybe. You see, the blokes didn’t want to look cheap in front of their women. They may have suspected you were on the dodge, but the last thing they’d do is show meanness.”
    â€œYea, I done the shivering dodge an’ all,” Ember nodded.
    â€œAnd I’d wager that you were very good at it, Ember.”
    â€œOnce, a man give me a whole silver crown to show off to his girl,but he come back, clipped me round the ear, and took it from me. I even called a copper, said he was robbing me, but the copper knew the dodge and clipped me ear again.”
    Lee Chow was delighted with all this, his sallow little face screwed into a wreath of pleasure.
    â€œHey, Spear.” Ember leaned forward. “You ever do the dead man’s lurk?”
    â€œOh, that was good if you had the gift of tongues. If you were a good talker. But let me tell you about a woman I knew: We called her Haggie Aggie. She was an old whore. Past it by then. So she was on the shivering dodge well into her sixties, near seventy. Used to station herself close to a good pub, and she’d rub ash into her face, make her pale and pasty like, mess her hair up with grease. And she’d do