once I entered. I knew so little of this place, and I did not want to make my presence there obvious. It was the abode of the wealthy and the fashionable and the privileged, and, while I was not afraid of such men, I did not know that I would be best served by barging in and nosing my way around until I found the man I sought.
The dark streets were far from abandoned; folk walked about me on the road in the near distance, including the vast number of jades who haunted this part of town, and I should have been more cautious than I was, for as I stood there, foolishly gaping, I felt the sharp poke of a blade pressed against my back.
It had not been pressed too hard—it had perhaps broken the skin a little, but no more. From its feel I thought it to be a hangar, not a knife. That meant more distance between the tip of the blade and the hand that held it. Such a distance worked in my favor.
I remained motionless for a lengthy second until I heard the culprit say, “Give me yer purse, and I won’t ’urt ye none.”
I could hear by his voice that he was but a lad—no more than twelve or thirteen, and though I could not turn my head to see him, I believed myself to be more than a match for the young rogue, who could possess little knowledge of a weapon he had certainly stolen. I took a quick step forward and to my right, and then, to confuse him, spun widely to my left. While he jabbed into the empty air where I had stood, I grabbed his wrist hard and squeezed until the hangar, old and rusty, slipped from his grasp and bounced upon the ground. Keeping my eye upon him, I picked up his weapon, and then twisted his arm behind him and forced him face-first against a wall.
As I had moved the boy, I noticed that a pair of gentlemen looked up at my proceedings with uncommon interest, but I could pay them no attention now. I turned my attention to this little thief, who was, as I had suspected, quite young. He was also thin, poorly dressed, and the owner of a surprisingly unpleasant odor. “You want something from my purse, do you?” I asked.
I admit that his courage impressed me. “Aye. What ’ave ye?”
I let go, took a step back, and reached into my purse. “Here’s a tuppence,” I said. “I want you to run an errand for me. If you do it right, I’ll give you a shilling.”
He turned around slowly. “A’right then, sir. Let’s see the money.”
Now one of the two gentlemen began to shout at me. “You’re not going to let him run off, are you?”
“If you were so interested in his apprehension, why did you not assist me?” I spat back.
“I wasn’t interested in his apprehension, but in your apprehending him.
“Don’t whine about it,” his friend snickered. “You’ve lost, Harry. Now pay up.”
Such are the sort of men one encounters in front of White’s Chocolate House.
I turned from these gamblers to the boy, to whom I gave Elias’s address and a brief message and sent him off, hoping he would return in the expectation of a shilling rather than settle for his tuppence. I expected Elias would be at home, as I believed that his recent celebratory expedition would have left him financially unable to enjoy many late nights for a week or so. While my thieving errand boy was gone, I kept a watchful eye upon the door to be certain that Mr. Deloney did not depart, and I kept an eye on my surroundings as well, unwilling to be taken as a cull a second time. It seemed to me an interminable wait as I paced back and forth upon St. James’s Street, watching, as with each moment of increasing darkness the strollers of Covent Garden became more vicious and desperate in appearance. At last, within the hour, Elias appeared, the boy on his tail.
“Where’s me shilling?” the young thief demanded.
“And mine?” Elias echoed. “I deserve something for this imposition.”
I tossed the boy his shilling.
“What about me ’angar?” he asked.
“You will only use it to perpetrate more robberies, and with your skills, you should soon perish at the end of a rope.”
“It beats perishin’ of ’unger,” he told me petulantly.
“Fair enough,” I agreed, and tossed him his weapon. It was an easy toss, but he missed and chased it as it bounced upon the roadway.
I turned to Elias. “I’d like to take a turn about White’s, and I can think of no better companion than you for such an expedition.”
He clapped his hands together like a child. “That’s splendid news. I’m sure you know that one must have money to enjoy White’s,” Elias assured me. “Or let me rephrase that,” he said with a grin. “One most likely has money, but I believe
“I shall pay your way,” I assured him.
“It is my pleasure to serve you, Weaver. Allow me to introduce you to London’s foremost gaming academy.”
I paid the small entrance fee for the two of us, and we thus entered into the strange world of London wagering. Places such as White’s, with their desperation and joy and suspense, are but miniatures of ’Change Alley, and indeed as much can be won, or, more likely, lost, at a card table in a single evening than in an entire season of stock-jobbing.
Though it was early in the evening, White’s was already quite full of pleasure seekers who huddled about large tables strewn through the room, playing at faro or ombre or simpler card games, rolling the hazard dice across tables, or any of a variety of house ventures that I could not fathom. The room smelled thick of tobacco and strong beer and sweaty clothing, and boomed with conversations too loud and too cheerful, occasionally punctuated by cries of glee or groans of wretchedness. Handsome young women, who I suspect may have had other duties, served a variety of drinks to the patrons, but among them I saw none of the chocolate of which this business’s name bespoke. And what stood before me was only the main room of White’s. I knew there were small rooms all about me for private gatherings, high-stakes games, and rendezvous with ladies.
“Now,” Elias said to me, “what new adventure of yours brings you to this place? I do not believe you are hard on your luck and wish to raise a few guineas.”
I chose to say nothing to Elias about Miriam. I had no interest in hearing any more of his observations on widows and pretty Jewesses, so I merely told him I had followed a suspicious gentleman to this place.
“And what is this man that he made you suspicious?”
“I didn’t like his look,” I replied impatiently as I scanned the room.
“That will leave you following half of London,” Elias muttered, none too pleased with my evasion. “Well,” he said, “perhaps this is my good fortune as your philosophy master, for there is no better place for you to see the laws of probability better displayed than in a gaming house.”
“If such laws are so apprehensible, why do so many men lose?”
“Because they are fools and know no better. Or, like me, they are ruled by their passions rather than their minds. And yet we have tools to beat the odds. It is astonishing to me, you know, this new world of philosophy in which we live. For the first time since the Creation itself we are truly learning how to think about what we see.” He paused for a moment. “How best to demonstrate?” he wondered aloud.
He then excused himself for a moment, which was all it took for him to find a gentleman willing to engage in a simple game of chance with us. He was a hollow-cheeked fellow of indeterminate age, who slouched at a small table, large enough only for four men. His arm guarded a pewter mug of punch as though one of us might attempt to rip it from his protection.
“This gentleman has agreed to play with us,” Elias told me. He then turned to our friend. “What return will you give on a simple coin toss?”
“Fifty percent,” the man droned, “betting a pound.” He sipped his punch.
“Very good. Give me a pound, Weaver.”
A pound! He was daring enough with my money, but I had no wish to argue in front of this stranger. Reluctantly, I gave him the coin.
“Now, our friend here is going to toss the coin into the air, and you must guess, before it lands, if it be heads or tails.”
Before I had a chance to object, the coin was in the air, and I called heads. It landed in the dealer’s hand, but Elias gestured for him to hold off uncovering it. “What do you think were your chances of being right?”
“One in two, I should think.”
“Precisely.” He nodded to the gamester, who revealed that I had guessed correctly, thus winning ten
