A Jester’s Fortune

'God knows when I'll be able to ship all this home as presents,' Lewrie told him. 'I expect I'll be hard at it 'til supper. Shopping… then get it back aboard.' He hoped once more Chute would just bugger off.

'Know yer way about?' Chute hinted.

'Well, no… but…'

'I do.'

'Bless me, Chute, but… you would!' Lewrie chuckled wryly.

'Aye, give me but one week in a strange place, and I'll know it good as a native,' Clotworthy boasted. 'I dare say I know Venice just as good as a local pimp or pickpocket by now. Better!'

'I was surprised to hear the Shockleys are still here,' Lewrie said, for want of something better. 'But you and Peter, too? Been up to much mischief?'

'Oh, keepin' me hand in… so t'speak,' Chute replied, leering and tapping his pate. 'Bit o' this, a bit o' that. With Peter so quimstruck, I've bags o' free time t'work a fiddle or two, for pocket money. Still have the bulk o' me London money, never fear…'

Which was the last fear on Lewrie's mind!

'Use it for workin' capital… seed money. Here, now, Alan. Done any glassware yet? Oh, Venice has champion glassworks. You'll never again see the like anywhere else in the world. Now, I know a shop…'

Lewrie's hand flew to cover his coin-heavy purse, by its own volition!

'A particular friend of yours, this shopkeeper, Clotworthy?'

'Lord, no, nothin' like that!' Chute pooh-poohed. 'Do ya crave fine art and such, then I'm yer man, me and my particular friends. Do ye get my meanin'l Shop's not far off. Care t'see it? Man's gettin' older by the minute, and no one t'carry on once he's gone. Sellin' up stock at knock- down prices, but he ain't on the local High Street, so's it's goin' cheap as fiddler's pay at a country dance.'

'Well…' Lewrie hedged.

'Right, then. We're off!' Chute boomed, turning to spout fluent Italian at the carter and his lads in that slurring, syrupy Venetian dialect. 'Two more items Venice is famed for, Alan, old son. Culture and quim. What else brings the young heirs to it on their Grand Tours? Well, straightaway I discovered that pimpin's out, even with fellow Englishmen. Dagoes have that market cornered, and a nudge and a wink in the right direction don't fetch me tuppence. And I don't feature havin' me throat cut or endin' up dead in a canal 'cause I poached on some garlic- breathed bravo's patch. And, it don't take much wit for a man t'flog quim, exactly, does it? Lord, Alan! Dagoes're all swagger, manly attitude and bad breath, but I doubt a dozen of 'em could muster the brains God only thought o promisin' a hedgehog. Well, with quim right-out, that leaves culture and art. The pimps're too slack-witted t'get into it, e'en though the profit's a thousand times better.'

'And you're… profiting, Clotworthy?' Lewrie just had to ask.

'Profitin', aye.' Chute most beatifically beamed at him. 'You've heard the tales, 'bout how some mincin' foreign mountebank art dealers skinned some jingle-brains from home? So what's finer than meetin' up with a fellow Englishman… a refined and educated fellow, known among the best circles in London,' Clotworthy boasted, shooting his cuffs as he preened and laid a hand on his heart, 'able t'drop a dozen names in a single breath, and back it up with inside information, mind! Man who knows his Cellini chalice from a wood piggin? Knows his way round, one who can steer 'em from bad shops to good, from the forgers to the honest? And know the old and genuine from the run-up last week. Or discover what they want most and have the connexions to get it run-up and aged, after wearin' 'em to a frazzle lookin' at hum-drum.'

'Decent profit in that?' Lewrie queried, intrigued in spite of his cautions. Clotworthy still owed him that money for 'tatties and gravy'!

'Finder s fee from the buyers… long with some excellent food and guzzle,' Chute expounded as they strolled, 'yer modest five percent or so, whate'er their gratitude can be stoked to. Five percent from the shop-owners, for haulin' em in. But ten percent do we foist off fake, from my, uhm… less honourable compatriots in the… reproduction lay.'

'I wonder, then, what your aid might be cost me… old son.' Lewrie scowled. 'After all…'

'Lewrie, old fettow!' Clotworthy balked, leaning away with his hand on his heart once more, pretending to still be capable of feeling insulted. 'What a scurrilous notion. To think that I, an old Harrow man… a schoolmate!… would play you false? Were I 'skint,' well…! That's a possibility, hmm? But! As I said, I'm flush with 'chink,' so never you fear. My expertise is yours, sir… gratis,' he added with a deep flourish of his hat, and an only semi-graceful formal bow.

'Well, in that case…'

'Might you feel so abashed, after making such a base allegation,' Clotworthy resumed, rising and clapping his feathered hat on, 'and might wish to tender some amends, I will allow you to treat me to supper. And a brace o' wine per diner, mind. Old fellow, I forgive you. Totally!'

Lewrie could but stand and laugh out loud at his audacity.

'Like Dante's Inferno,' Clotworthy promised, 'I'll be your ghost of Virgil. I'll tour you through the Nine Circles of Hades, and fetch ye out without a single smudge o' soot. Gad, see what a proper public-school education benefits a man? E'en did they flog it into us?'

The glass-shop held spectacular bargains, for the shopkeeper really was as old as Methuselah, with one foot in the grave, Lewrie had to think, for he wheezed and coughed the entire time. Lewrie bought some pale pink-and-white dinnerware, a service for eight, for their morning room when they dined en famille, replete with bowls, cups, salad plates and servers. Then a complete stemware set of glasses for everyday use in that same semi-translucent pale pink, with more ornate clear-glass for stems between bases and glasses. All was most carefully wrapped, with heavy paper, wadded with old newspapers, then crated in straw and dry seaweed before the crates were nailed shut. And all for only Ј20!

Next, they hit a furniture store, though Lewrie wasn't exactly taken with the cast-off Baroque pieces, nor with the painted-on floral busyness of most of the lacquered pieces in the Rococo style. He did rather admire a pair of small commodes, though, which he thought might look cunning on either side of their main staircase, once inside their entry hall. They were Chinee-red, four-footed, gently bell-shaped and bulging toward the top, rich with gold leaf and decorated with painted scenes of Venetian doings.

'Lacca povera,' Clotworthy whispered softly, shaking his head in sadness. 'Scenes're printed on paper first, then lacquered on. Don't even think of it, Alan, old son. You'll note the bastard s askin' over three hundred pounds for the pair, same as he is for yon genuine pair… which are hand-painted. Thought the bugger wasn't entirely straight!'

'Couldn't afford either,' Lewrie confessed.

'Well, do you not mind they might be a tad, uhm… warm to the touch? In a manner o' speakin',' Clotworthy wheezed. 'I think I know where the genuine article can be had. In a day'r two, mind. A week at the outside.' Chute tut-tutted.

'Stolen, you mean.'

'Shhh! Not a word t'bandy about, now, is it?' Chute hissed, with a finger on his lips. 'Not right out loud, thankee.'

'Don't know as I care for… warm, Clotworthy,' Alan whispered. 'Even were they a guinea the pair. Caroline likes to get things which remind her where I've served. She'd like these, but… perhaps just a copy of a good painting… something like that? Wait a minute, that's torn it! I've just blabbed what you want to know. Like your grateful buyers, hey?' 'You have, indeed, and I'll keep my eye out for something.' His corpulent old school chum winked. 'Something special. And reasonable.' 'Not pinched?'

'You press me sore, Alan, old son.' Clotworthy pretended to wince. 'Not pinched. Not a flagrant fraud, either. No Canaletto, when it's really some toothless old rogue's drunken copy-work,' Alan said.

'Ah, perhaps we should call upon an art gallery which just this very minute springs to mind! They've-'

'Think I'm shopped out, Chute,' Lewrie demurred. 'Feeling a tad peckish, too. Let's have all this over to the Molo, so I can stow them aboard 'fore sundown. And then I'll buy you that supper.' 'Well, if you're wearied…'