Heaps of Trouble by Emelyn Heaps Page B

next to my patch. Experimenting at home with the bloody stuff, I realised that if I mixed soot with ground-up soap bars it looked like grease and, mixing it into a paste, I could apply it to any piece of cloth…and lo and behold the “magic Japanese soap” would remove the stain. The next Sunday I arrived early to coincide with Bob’s arrival and, after carefully removing all of the grease from the back axle of his cart wheel, I reapplied my own invention, then set up my stand and awaited the arrival of the punters.’
    You could have heard a pin drop at this stage and the arrival of a last-minute customer was met with frantic hand signals telling him to be quiet and to come over and join the company.
    â€˜Well, before long’, continued Hector, after acknowledging the new arrival with a nod of his head, ‘I had a crowd circling me and, after describing the amazing magic quality of the Japanese soap, the moment of truth arrived and, stepping off my box, I cried out that it would even remove axle grease. Reaching down to Bob’s wagon I removed a handful of my special paste, smeared it on the front of my white shirt and, to everyone’s amazement, the bar of soap removed the stain before their very eyes. With the crowd expanding, I got carried away and started to smear the “grease” onto some of the male onlookers’ shirts, which first brought cries of indignation from their lady friends…but as soon as the stain was removed, gasps of amazement. Making me, there and then, on the spot, decide that I was not charging enough for the stuff and I should double the price of it.’
    Cries of ‘shame, Hector that’s not like you’ came from the gathering, which was at this stage liberally helping itself to his booze. Hector, grinning from ear to ear, informed them that he could not take the money from the punters quickly enough and, holding his hands up for silence, he added that he was not quite at the end of the story yet.
    â€˜The next Sunday morning, arriving early again and loaded down with the remaining boxes of the soap mix, I repeated the stunt with Bob’s wagon. It was raining slightly, so I decided to take shelter in Milligan’s pub until it cleared and to await the arrival of the normal Sunday punters there.
    â€˜Afternoon, with the streets filling, I ambled back to my stand and, as on the previous week, before long I had a large group gathered around me. This time, to create a bigger impact, I picked out of the crowd the biggest and ugliest docker that I could find. Calling him up to the stand, I once again ducked under Bob’s cart and, with a handful of my special grease, smeared it onto the front of his starched white shirt, his Sunday best. With the size of the man, it was like applying it to the side of a ship and his little woman nearly fainting with the shock of what I was doing.’
    Here Hector paused and hung his head, as if he was reliving the moment, and everybody else held their breath in case he would not finish. But after a few seconds he again raised his head, smiled that huge grin of his at the assembly and, to the sound of sighs of relief being expelled all around him, he continued.
    â€˜Climbing back on top of my box, for the bastard was so tall…even on my box I only came up to his chin…his face was getting redder and redder, and me grinning up at him like the village idiot. At the same time at the top of my voice telling him and the crowd not to worry, and fighting off his missus who was tugging at my arm demanding to know how she was going to wash it off and who was going to pay for a new shirt? I proceeded to apply the “magic Japanese soap” to his barrel chest, whilst anticipating the cries of amazement from the masses and, more importantly, the animal in front of me. Well, to my great astonishment, nothing happened – and the more I rubbed with the soap, the more I spread the black crud around