“What, pray, is a tosher?”
“Much like a mud lark, but they scour the sewers for their finds.”
“What a wretched existence.”
Kartik takes on a hard tone. “It is a means to live. Life isn’t always fair.”
The comment is meant to sting and it does. We fall into quiet.
“You’re the one always speaking of fate and destiny. How do you explain their lot, then? Is it their fate to suffer so?”
Kartik shoves his hands into his pockets. “Suffering isn’t destiny. Nor is ignorance.”
A woman’s voice cuts through the fog. “Wot’s the rivah give you tonigh’?”
“Luv, I go’ apples ’n’ stuffin’!” another shouts back.
They fall into loud gales of laughter.
“They’ve found apples and stuffing here?” I ask.
Kartik grins. “It’s Cockney rhyme. The last word is a rhyme for the word they mean. ‘I’ve got apples ’n’stuffing’ really means ‘I got nothing,’ or, as she’d say, ‘I got nuffin’.’”
“Oi! Kartik!” One of the urchins stumbles up from the filth and muck of the river. “Been waitin’ on you, mate.”
“We were delayed, Toby.” He apologizes to the mud-coated boy with a bow.
Toby nears, and so does his smell. It is a horrible mixture of stagnant river water, rubbish, and worse. I dare not think about what lives in his ragged clothes. My stomach lurches and I find I have to breathe through my mouth so as not to swoon.
“How is the treasure hunting?” Kartik asks. He thinks he’s clever but he’s got his hand at his chin. His fingers cover his nose.
“No’ grand, but no’ bad, neither.” Toby holds out his palm. In it is an odd collection—a small lump of coal, two hairpins, a tooth, a shilling. Every bit of it is coated in filth. He smiles widely, revealing a lack of teeth. “That will buy a pint of ale.” Toby views me suspiciously. “’At a lady in gent’s trousers?” I’m certain the horror shows on my face.
Kartik raises an eyebrow. “Can’t fool everyone.”
Toby jingles the loot in his hand. “She’s no beauty, mate, but she looks clean. ’Ow much?”
I do not understand straightaway, but when I do, a fierce rage overtakes me.