“There is a king’s ransom, I do hear, to be had out of the antique trade at present,” said John matter-of-factly.
“Oh yes?” Pooley replied without enthusiasm.
“Certainly, the junk of yesterday is proving to be the ob-ja-dart of today and the nestegg of tomorrow.” Omally rose to dump two tea bags into as many enamel mugs and top the fellows up with boiling water. “A veritable king’s ransom, ready for the taking. A man could not go it alone in such a trade, he would need a partner, of course.”
“Of course.”
“A man he could trust.” John put much emphasis upon the word as he wrung out the tea bags and added the cream of the milk to his own mug and a splash of the rest to Jim’s. “Yes, he would definitely want a man he could rely on.”
“I am convinced of that,” said Jim, accepting his mug. “A bit strong, isn’t it?”
“Antique bedding is currently the vogue amongst the trendies of Kensington, I understand,” John continued.
“Oh those bodies.”
“Yes, the fashionable set do be weeping, wailing, and gnashing its expensively-capped teeth for the lack of it.”
Pooley blew on to his tea. “Strange days,” said he.
John felt that he was obviously not getting his point across in quite the right way. A more direct approach was necessary. “Jim,” he said in a highly confidential tone. “What would you say if I was to offer you a chance of a partnership in an enterprise which would involve you in absolutely no financial risk whatever?”
“I would say that there is always a first time for everything, I suppose.”
“What if I was to tell you that at this very moment I know of where there is an extremely valuable antique lying discarded and unwanted which is ours for the taking, what would you say then?”
Jim sipped at his tea. “I would say to you then, Omally,” he said, without daring to look up, “dig the bugger out yourself.”
Omally’s eyebrows soared towards his flat cap.
Pooley simply pointed to an L-shaped tear in his own left trouser knee. “I passed along your path not half an hour before you,” he said simply.
“Your lack of enterprise is a thing to inspire disgust.”
“He that diggeth a pit will fall into it. Ecclesiasticus Chapter twenty-seven, verse twenty-six,” said Jim Pooley. “I am not a religious man as you well know, but I feel that the Scriptures definitely have it sussed on this point. A commendable try though.” Jim took out his cigarette packet from his top pocket and handed the Irishman a tailor-made.
“Thank you,” said Omally.
“Now, if you really have a wish to make a killing today -” John nodded enthusiastically, it was early yet and his brain was only just warming up to the daily challenge, “- I have seen something which has the potential to earn a man more pennies than a thousand buried bedframes. Something which a man can only be expected to witness once in a lifetime. And something of such vast financial potential that if a man was to see it and not take advantage of the experience, he should consider himself a soul lost for ever and beyond all hope.”
“Your words are pure music,” said John Omally. “Play on, sweet friend, play on.”
As Neville the part-time barman drew the polished brass bolts on the saloon-bar door and stood in the opening, sniffing the air, the clatter of two pairs of hobnail boots and the grating of rear mudguard upon back wheel announced the approach of a brace of regulars. One of these was a gentleman of Celtic extraction who had recently become convinced that the future lay in perpetual motion and its application to the fifth gear of the common bicycle. Neville installed himself behind the bar counter and closed the hinged counter top.
“God save all here,” said John Omally, pushing open the door.
“Count that double,” said Pooley, following up the rear.
Neville pushed a polished glass beneath the spout of the beer engine and drew upon the enamel pump handle. Before the patrons had hoisted themselves on to their accustomed barstools, two pints of Large stood brimming before them, golden brown and crystal clear. “Welcome,” said Neville.
“Hello once more,” said Omally, “Jim is in the chair.” Pooley smiled and pushed the exact amount of pennies and halfpennies across the polished counter top. Neville rang up “No Sale” and once more all was as it ever had been and hopefully ever would be in Brentford.
“How goes the game then, gentlemen?” Neville asked the patrons, already a third of the way through their pints.
“As ever, cruel to the working man,” said John. “And how is yourself?”
“To tell you the truth, a little iffy. In your personal opinion, John, how do I look to you?”
“The very picture of health.”
“Not a little puffy?” Neville fingered his middle regions.
“Not at all.”
“No hint of stoutness there? You can be frank with me, I have no fear of criticism.”
Omally shook his head and looked towards Jim. “You look fine,” said Pooley. “Are you feeling a bit poorly, then?”
“No, no.” Neville shook his head with vigour. “It’s just that, well…” he considered the two drinkers who surveyed him with dubious expressions. “Oh, nothing at all. I look all right you think? No higher, say, than usual?” Two heads swung to and fro upon their respective necks. “Best to forget it then, a small matter, do not let it spoil your ale.”
“Have no fear of that,” said John Omally.
The Swan’s door opened to admit the entry of an elderly gentleman and his dog. “Morning, John, Jim,” said Old Pete, sidling up to the bar. “Large dark rum please, Neville.” Neville took himself off to the optic.
“Morning, Pete,” said Pooley, “good day, Chips.” The ancient’s furry companion woofed non-committally. “Are you fit?”
“As well as can be expected. And how goes the sport for you? That Big One still lurking up beyond your frayed cuff?”
Pooley made a “so-so” gesture. “Inches, but…”
Old Pete accepted his drink from Neville and held up the glass to evaluate the exact volume of his measure before grudgingly pushing the correct change across the bar top. “So,” he continued, addressing himself to Omally, “and how fare the crops?”
“Blooming,” said Omally. “I expect a bumper harvest this year. Come the Festival. I expect several firsts and as many seconds in the Show.”
“King Teddies again then, is it?” Revered as the personification of all agricultural knowledge within a radius of an ’nth number of miles, Old Pete had little truck with potato growers.
“Nature’s finest food,” said John. “Was it not the spud which sustained the Joyces, the Wildes, the Behans and the Traynors? Show me a great man and I will show you a spud to his rear.”
“I have little regard for footballers,” said Old Pete. “If you were any kind of a farmer you would diversify your crops a little. I myself have fostered no fewer than five new varieties of sprout.”
Omally crossed himself and made a disgusted face. “Don’t even speak the word,” said he. “I cannot be having with that most despicable of all vegetables.”
“The sprout is your man,” intoned the old one. “Full of iron. A man could live alone upon a desert island all his life if he had nothing more than a few sprout seeds and bit of common sense.”
“A pox on all sprouts,” said John, crouching low over his pint. “May the black fly take the lot of them.”
Pooley was consulting his racing paper. Possibly there was a horse running whose name was an anagram of “sprout”. Such factors were not to be taken lightly when one was seeking that all elusive cosmic connection. The effort was quite considerable and very shortly Jim, like Dickens’s now legendary fat boy, was once more asleep. Neville made to take up the half-finished glass for the washer. With a sudden transformation from Dickens to Edgar Alien Poe, the sleeper awoke. “Not done here,” said Jim. “It’s Omally’s round.” Omally got them in.