and a look, so he paused and he looked. There was silence. Gratified by the hush he went on. ‘The holy sanctuary of El is in danger from the prying nose of a stranger. An enemy. Yous all know that in this world which is a vale of tears we are continuously besieged by enemies seeking for to devour us. El is ours and we are El’s and it’s our duty to behave so as to keep it that way. Now you have got to be told that just the other night, not far from this place where we meet to pay our respects to El, I was detained by a man who was certainly a spy sent here by them we’ve got to beware of. He proclaimed for to have knew my father but he made a strong depression on me of having an interest in how to get in here. So if yous ever see a bowly-legged man anywhere in Tulip Place or Bethel Street yous is not to knock at the door. Wait till he goes away. And if he doesn’t go away don’t come anywhere near the door. He only wants to find the way in, and if he ever does we’ve all had it. You know what happened to the Incas of Peru when the Spaniards discovered Montezuma’s treasure.’
They didn’t, but the way he said it made them understand it wasn’t a good thing for Montezuma.
Savage lurched from squatting at the right foot of the Regent Supreme, bowed insolently to the Brotherhood, and turned half-right to speak to the chair.
‘What should we no’ come in by the door in the basement then for?’ he asked. ‘There’s nobody could see us that way if we came in through the playground and went down to the basement.’
‘Of course you would be seen,’ Percy said impatiently. ‘Yous would have to go in by the main gate, wouldn’t you? And yous would have to cross the playground right in front of the janny’s house. He’d be bound to see you. It’s no’ dark till after eleven o’clock these nights. Or else he’d hear you. I know. I lived there long enough. Just take my word for it if you don’t believe me. And anyway the door in the basement’s kept locked. The new janny keeps it locked. And I never managed to get a key for it. So you see you just couldna get in that way. And even if you could you would never manage it, no’ without getting caught.’
‘Aw, I see,’ said Savage, and squatted with such a pleased smile that Percy was puzzled. And being puzzled he worried.
But it was time to go on with the business of the evening and he let Savage rest. He stood before the first of the three tea-chests, signalled the campanologist by making the sign of El in mid-air, and when the bell had been rung the Brotherhood came forward to the chest and knelt down to whisper their request.
‘Four fivers,’ said Noddy, making the required sign on his brow as he humbly knelt at Percy’s large crepe-soled shoes.
Percy frowned. How quickly times had changed since they were content to ask for a small sum for a particular purpose! Now they asked for an absurd amount and never thought of telling him what they wanted it for. They had panted through an orgy of spending, asking for things instead of money. And he had agreed. He had even been their errand-boy. That was his mistake. He saw it too late, and stood frowning at Noddy in disapproval. This was a new phase. They had tired of buying things they couldn’t use and couldn’t hide. Now they wanted money again, not for anything special but just to have the money itself as power in their pocket. He had given in to them too long, he had let the gentlemen’s agreement lapse. It was high time he made a stand.
‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘That’s far too-too much for you. You just want it. You don’t want it for anything.’
‘I do,’ said Noddy. ‘I’m saving up for a piano.’
‘And where would you put a piano if you had one?’ Percy demanded. ‘You’d have the whole street talking. You’ll get one, and like it.’
‘One fiver,’ said Noddy humbly.
‘One single,’ said Percy meanly, and handed him it.
Noddy took the pound without arguing, but he muttered behind Percy’s back. Savage listened to him. Savage courted him.
‘Are you saving up hard?’ he asked Noddy on the stairs the next morning. They lived up the same close.
Noddy nodded. He wasn’t given to saying much.
‘It’ll take you a long time to get enough for a piano at Percy’s rate,’ he suggested.
‘Aye, so it will,’ said Noddy neutrally.
‘And if ye’re saving up what are you doing for spending- money?’ Savage asked sympathetically.
Noddy brought his shoulders up to his ears and showed off two black-palmed hands. He said nothing to mean nothing.
‘Here I’ll give you a few bob for spending,’ Savage said, lording it over the dumb urchin, and gave him two ten- shilling notes. ‘Percy isn’t the only prophet of the great god El, ye know. Just you see me tonight at seven outside the pictures and I’ll give you something to help to get your piano.’
He gave him twenty pounds. He had been entering the cellar secretly at midnight for a week past and taking away money in handfuls from the third and last of the tea- chests, the one that was stowed away in the farthest corner of the rat-wall, the chest Percy seemed to think would do for their old age. Some of the money he hid up the chimney in the back room of his house, where a gas-fire had been fitted into the place once filled by the cradle for a coal fire. Some of it he hid inside the derelict air-raid shelter, built before he was born and never pulled down, that filled the hinterland of the tenement where he lived. Some of it he hid on the roof of a glue-factory where the gutter came within reach of the flat top of the washhouse in the back-court. Some of it he put inside an old pair of wellingtons under his bed and stuffed sheets of newspaper on top of it. He was careful never to carry much of it about with him, but he had between four and five hundred pounds he could get at quickly, and he set himself up as a rival to Percy. He liked giving money away. It made him feel big.
Noddy put the twenty pounds into his own hoard, and kept the two ten-shilling notes in his pocket as spending money. He was delighted with them, so delighted that he had no desire to spend them. Two bits of paper were twice as good as one, and he valued Savage’s gift of the two half- notes more than he valued Percy’s donation of a single pound. The ten-shilling notes were beautiful. He would sit looking at them, marvelling at the curly lines round the heading, Bank of England, and puzzling over the words ‘Promise to pay the Bearer on Demand the sum of Ten Shillings’, with more curly lines round the last line. What did it mean, Promise to pay Ten Shillings, when this bit of russet and dirty-white paper was itself ten shillings? He stared hard at the seated lady on the left with a long pole in her hand and wondered who she was. And beneath her was a long number and beneath the number there were the words Ten Shillings in a frame with curly lines all round it. Up at the right there was the same number, and a fancy design with 10 Shillings in the centre. On the back, inside a lot of feathers or dead leaves, it said 10/- twice. So there was no doubt it was ten shillings. Then why promise to pay ten shillings for it? Or what was ‘on demand’? It hypnotized him. Probably no one had ever looked so long and so hard and so often at a mere ten shilling note as Noddy did that weekend.
He was still at it when he was back at school on the Monday. He had one of them under the desk when Jasper was at the board trying to teach the division of fractions.
‘Three-quarters divided by one-half equals three over four multiplied by two over one,’ he jabbered, scribbling with the chalk as he went through it, ‘equals six over four equals one and a half.’
He turned to look at his class. They were staring at the blackboard with a glazed look, stunned, stupefied and speechless, all except Noddy. His eyes were equally glazed, but not at the four-line transmutation of three- quarters into one and a half. He was admiring one of his ten-shilling notes.
Silent in his rubber-soled shoes, Jasper prowled over to the faraway boy. He wore rubber soles as an economy measure, for on his salary he couldn’t afford two pairs of shoes and a motor-bike as well. He was a poor man. Noddy hadn’t heard a word of the gabble at the blackboard, but now he heard the silence and looked up sharply to see what was wrong. He was too late. Jasper pounced.
‘Where did you get that?’