'All right, ma'am-you can leave us to it,' said Sneed.
'Mind you don't chip me china,' advised the old lady as she departed.
Swinburne looked around but couldn't see any china. The room smelled musty and damp.
'Jump to it!' snapped the Conk. 'Lay out the sacking.'
He sat on a shabby armchair and pulled the bottle of moonshine from his pocket, taking swigs, watching Swinburne work, and giving the sack between his knees an occasional slap.
Swinburne soon had the floor and furniture, what there was of it, covered.
The master sweep slipped the bottle back into his jacket, slid off the chair, and poked his head into the fireplace, looking up.
'Nope,' he grunted. 'You'll not get up there. Why the Beetle 'ad to send me a hulking great helephant like you I don't know.'
Swinburne grinned. He'd been called many things in his time but 'hulking great helephant' was a first.
The Conk twisted, shot out a hand, and slapped the poet's face. Swinburne gasped.
'You can wipe that smile off yet ugly mug!' snarled the Conk. 'You've got too much hattitude, you 'ave.'
They returned to the wagon outside and Swinburne untied the ropes that secured the ladder. Sneed slid it off-it was too heavy for Swinburne-and heaved it up until its top rested against the side of the roof, its topmost rung just below the eaves.
'Get up there and drop down the rope, an' be quick about it!'
'Yes, sir,' said the poet, whose face was stinging pleasantly.
While the Conk returned to the room behind the shop, Swinburne wound a long length of rope around his little shoulders then scrambled up the ladder. He now faced his most dangerous task: he had to cross the sloping roof to the chimney pot, a sloping roof whose tiles were slick from the spitting rain.
Lifting himself off the top rung and over the eaves, he lay on his right hip and pressed the sides of his boots against the wet surface. With his palms flat against the tiles, he began to push himself up. Bit by bit, he advanced over the shingles toward the ridge.
It took nearly ten painstaking minutes but he made it without slipping and, with a sigh of relief, stood and braced himself against the chimney. He unravelled the rope and lowered it into the flue.
'About bleedin' time, you lazy bugger,' came a hollow voice from below.
The rope jumped and jerked as the Conk tied its end around the goose's legs. Swinburne could hear the bird honking in distress.
'All right, up with 'er,' came Sneed's command.
Swinburne started to haul the unfortunate-and very heavy-goose up the shaft. Its panicked flapping and cries echoed up the flue.
This was the method they used to loosen the caked soot from the inside of the chimney when the space was too narrow for Swinburne to climb up and do it himself. Though he felt sympathy for the traumatised bird, the poet preferred it this way, for climbing a flue was an intensely difficult and dangerous affair, as the bruises and grazes on his knees, elbows, shoulders, and hands testified.
All the way to the top he pulled the fowl, until its flapping wings came into view amid a cloud of soot; then he lowered the blackened bird down again; his shoulders afire with the effort; the rope slipping through his hands and ripping his blisters.
'Done!' echoed Sneed's voice. 'Get down 'ere!'
Dropping the rope into the chimney, Swinburne sat, twisted himself around, lay flat, and gingerly made his way down over the tiles.
The spits and spots of rain gave way to a more serious shower and the increasing gloom made it difficult to locate the top of the ladder, which projected just a couple of inches over the eaves. Swinburne-tiny, excitable, and oversensitive-was not, however, a man who felt fear, and despite the precar iousness of his position, he remained calm as he carefully shifted himself over the slick shingles at the edge of the roof until the toe of his left boot bumped the ladder. He manoeuvred onto the topmost rung and climbed down until, with a sigh of relief, he felt his boots touch the pavement.
By now, his whole body was aching and he longed for a brandy. It had been three days since his last drink and he was finding sobriety thoroughly disagreeable.
He returned to the Conk, who snarled, 'Too slow, boy! This ain't a bleedin' 'oliday!'
'Sorry, sir-the roof was wet.'
'I'll 'ave none o' yet excuses! Finish the job!'
The sweep sat back and took a swig of moonshine while Swinburne knelt on the sacking, which was now covered with the soot the goose had loosened from the flue, and started removing the rods from the long holdall. He affixed the large round, flat, and stiff-bristled brush to the end of one and pushed it up the chimney. Soot showered down and billowed around him. Screwing a second rod into the end of the first, he pushed again, with the same result. This routine continued until he stopped feeling any resistance from the brush, which meant that it was now poking out of the top of the chimney. He then reversed the process, unscrewing the rods one by one and pulling them down until the brush reappeared.
Sneed, who was by now quite drunk, mumbled: 'Job done. Pack up.'
Of course I will, thought Swinburne. You must be exhausted with all you've done!
He placed the rods and brush back into the holdall then rolled up each piece of sacking, carefully catching all the soot in the material. Nevertheless, once done, there remained a layer of black powder over every surface in the room, and this he had to clean up with a dustpan and brush and a damp rag.
As he was finishing, a broomcat poked its head around the door, surveyed the room, and licked its lips.
'Just in time. Grub up!' exclaimed Swinburne as the feline sidled in and started to walk up and down the length of the room. Its long, statically charged hair would attract the last remnants of soot, then, once every inch of floor had been covered, the broomcat would lick itself clean and digest the particles.
It was past seven o'clock by the time they steered the wagon out of Hanbury Street. Coins jingled in Sneed's pocket; in short measure they'd be exchanged for ale, though he'd have to keep a few back in order to pay the League of Chimney Sweeps, thus avoiding a visit from the organisation's infamous 'punishers.'
Had Swinburne been a real member of the League, he'd have received payment from them at the end of each week; a fixed amount, no matter how many jobs he had or hadn't done. It was a good system for the young boys, who were assured of a regular income while being protected from the worst brutalities inflicted by the master sweeps, who'd themselves been League members until they turned fourteen years of age.
Once ejected and no longer under the auspices of the Beetle, the exLeague members soon fell prey to the degradations of the East End, for scarcely any of them could afford to live elsewhere. They had their own union-the Brotherhood of Master Sweeps-but without the iron hand of the Beetle to run it, the corrupting influence of poverty, crime, and alcohol quickly caused little boys like Charlie and Ned to degenerate into sadistic louts like Vincent Sneed. In the Cauldron, that was the natural order, and even Charles Darwin would have been hard-pressed to find any signs of evolution there.
Algernon Swinburne drew the wagon to a halt outside the poulterer's and handed the reins over to the Conk. He jumped down and took a sack from the back; it contained the dead goose, its neck having been broken by Sneed after its horrible ordeal in the chimney.
'You can clean the 'quipment in the morning,' announced Sneed in an uncharacteristic fit of generosity. He clicked his tongue and shook the reins and the horse moved off. Swinburne would have to make his own way back later. For now, he had another job to do.
He entered the poulterer's shop.
'Evening, Mr. Jambory,' he said cheerfully to the tall, fat, treble-chinned proprietor.
'Hullo, sonny. I told you she was a flapper! You're as black as pitch!'
'She certainly was, sir. Very efficient! Very efficient indeed!'
'Jolly good show. Take her out back and get her plucked, then.'
Swinburne nodded and carried the sack through to the small yard behind the shop. He sat on a small stool, pulled out the bird, and started yanking out the blackened feathers.
The rain dribbled down the back of his neck. It turned the feathers and soot into a grey mush around his feet.
Half his mind seemed to disengage, dozing, while the remaining half guided his fingers over the goose. He
