'Bring sponge, lad… a wet sponge!' Silas Browne shouted at one of the boys nearest to him. '

'Urry!'

In a few moments the boy returned and handed Silas Browne a damp sponge. Placing the scrap of paper again against the window glass, Silas wiped carefully over it several times. Then he lifted it from the window with the edge of his thumbnail and called for a pair of tweezers. Holding the paper at one corner with the tweezers, he walked over to a hearth where several cast-iron pots of blacking plopped slowly on the open coals. He held the pincers and paper to the heat of the embers, and the tiny scrap of damp paper took only moments to dry. Silas Browne returned to the window and held the paper once again to the light.

'Jaysus, Mary and Joseph!' he shouted, '

'Tain't possible, watermark's stayed! Bloody watermark's stayed put right 'ere on paper! Quick! Call Maggie!'

Another young lad dashed off while the rest of the men gathered around, astonished to see that the faked Bank of England watermark had remained undamaged, as though it was woven within the very substance of the paper.

'What's 'is name, Josh?' Silas demanded. 'Ikey… Ikey Sausageman, sir…' Josh looked uncertain. 'Sonomins, summit like that, sir.'

'Ikey Solomons! Jaysus Christ!' Silas pointed to one of the men. 'Go with the lad, Jim, bring 'im along, 'e be famous like in London!' He looked around impatiently. 'Where's bloody Maggie?'

Not twenty minutes later Silas and Maggie looked on in amazement as Ikey produced the first of the engravings. Ikey unwrapped the watermarked Bank of England paper covering the copper rectangle, and leaving it lying in the centre of the paper he straightened out the sheet, smoothing its sides with the edges of his palm without touching the shining copper plate, so that the rectangular etching lay pristine, a precious slab of polished metal catching the light. Then Ikey tried to lift the etched copper plate from the centre of the paper but his hands were too cold and his fingers were quite unable to function. Maggie, seeing his distress, bid him warm himself at the hearth while she brought him a plate of bread and a deep bowl of beef and potato broth.

'There you be, then, Mr Solomons, a bowl of broth will soon warm you proper well!'

While Ikey greedily slurped the creamy broth, thick almost as a good Irish stew, Silas and his wife, who, in her wooden clogs, stood as tall as her husband, examined the etching but did not touch it or the bill paper on which it lay. Halfway through the large bowl Ikey stopped and pointed to the sheet of paper with its corner missing, and nodded to Maggie the Colour. 'Take a good look then, my dear! Never was there a better drop o' paper for your marvellous colours and tinctures, and never a plate etched more perfect!'

Maggie picked up the etched copper plate while Silas examined the paper, neither saying a word, as Ikey went back to slurping his soup. Maggie the Colour handed the copper plate to Silas, holding it carefully between her fingers at each end and took the paper Silas had placed back on the table and walked over to the nearest window. She carefully flattened a portion of it against the window pane.

After a few moments she turned to Silas. 'What you think, then?'

'Never seen nothin' the likes o' this engravin' before! Never… and that's Gawd's truth!' exclaimed Silas, examining the plate through an eyeglass.

'The paper?' Maggie asked, turning now to Ikey. '

'Ow'd you do it, Mr Solomons?'

'Solomon, it don't 'ave no "s",' Ikey said, placing down his spoon, the bowl close to empty. He was suddenly aware that hunger and cold had driven him to show too much without the attendant patter required to work them up to the first unveiling. He had neglected the basic tenet of business, to reveal only a little at a time, enough to whet the appetite, so to speak, while holding sufficient back to feed the urgency of the bargaining that must inevitably follow. Now he attempted to recover somewhat from this poorly managed beginning.

'I've 'ad the pleasure o' being a regular customer for your work, my dear. Marvellous! Ain't no personage in England, perhaps even the world, what can mix tinctures, colours and gradations as subtle as you. Work o' pure genius, madam! Pure and simple and undisputed genius, no less.'

Maggie the Colour smiled thinly and looked down, embarrassed. 'Now, Mr Solomons, 'tain't that good!'

'Not a scrap less praise and 'onour is due to you!' Ikey declared. 'Them colours is o' the 'ighest possible magnitude, the work of a genius!' Ikey cleared his throat and grinned at Maggie. 'Now supposin' I was to ask you 'ow you come about them colours, asked Maggie the Colour the secret o' her dyes and tinctures and the mixtures for your ink galls? What say you then, my dear?'

'Quite right!' Silas Browne laughed and with the eyeglass still clamped in his eye, clapped his hands. 'You'd be gettin' nowt from our Maggie! Them inks and dyes, tinctures and juices, they be 'er secret to 'er final dyin' breath, till grave an' beyond!'

'Ah, you see?' Ikey exclaimed. 'A secret is only a secret when it remains in the 'ead of one person. Share it with another and it ain't a secret no more. You can kiss it goodbye, my dear, it's gorn forever. It's like a bloomin' swallow what's left England for warmer climes when winter approaches. Next thing you know it's on the other side o' the bloomin' world, darkest Africa or wilds o' South America! Good secrets all 'ave a price and the tellin' o' them is never cheap!' Ikey resumed slurping his soup, satisfied that he'd somewhat recovered the initiative.

'Do we take it you 'as a proposition to make, like?' Silas Browne asked, carefully placing the plate he'd been examining back on the square of paper which Maggie had returned to the table.

Ikey's untidy eyebrows lifted halfway up his brow and his eyes widened in pleasant surprise, his spoon poised in mid-air.

'A proposition? Why sir, that is exactly and precisely and unequivocally what I 'ave! A proposition, a business proposition, a remarkable opportunity, a proposition the likes o' which may never come your way again. A truly great conjunction of opportunities, of copper and paper and ink, an opportunity not never to be matched in its potential for wealth! A proposition you say! Why, I couldn't 'ave put it no better meself.'

Ikey went back to the remainder of his soup, and when the scraping and rattling of his spoon had ceased he further stalled the opportunity for an answer from his hosts by wiping the interior of the bowl clean with the last of the bread. 'A proposition as delicious, madam, as this bowl of excellent broth!' he finally concluded.

Maggie the Colour smiled at the compliment, knowing it to be the first thrust in the bargaining to come. 'Where shall we begin, then… paper or plate? I can see the plate but paper be but one sheet and cut at corner like?'

'Paper's good, but 'ow much? 'Ow much 'as you got?' said Silas Browne, repeating his wife's question.

Silas was not a man inclined to much subtlety nor one to beat about the bush, and he'd already spent as much good humour as he was known to offer anyone. Ikey, seeing him for the more clumsy of the two, had hoped that he might be the mouth. But it took him only moments to realise that Maggie the Colour's smile was a clear indication of where the brains in their partnership lay.

'Depends o' course what denominations you want to print, my dears.'

'Denominations?' Maggie the Colour looked at Ikey curiously. 'This plate is for ten pounds.'

Ikey jabbed a finger at her. 'That it is, my dear, but it could be supposed that there might be others if an interest is shown in what 'as already been revealed and remarked upon? There could be a plate to the astonishin' denomination of one 'undred pounds!'

'One 'undred pounds? You say engravin' be for one 'undred!' Silas said scornfully. 'Bullshit! 'Undred pound engravin' be too 'ard for single engraver, too 'ard by 'arf and then some! 'Undred pound engravin' take four scratchers, maybe five. 'Tain't humanly possible!'