They were certainly not the rooms of the idle rich, although rumour did hold in the borough that the eccentric millionaire Howard Hughes had once occupied them. But then local rumour also held that Pocahontas had once roomed at The Flying Swan and that Karl Marx had regularly taken tea at The Plume Café around the corner.

And as rumour is generally based upon fact, and facts are undeniably true, there seems no reason to doubt these rumours.

Jim did not enjoy living the way he did. His unfailing cheerfulness belied this fact, but fact indeed it was. However, Jim held to the philosophy that there can be no beauty without ugliness, no enjoyment of pleasure without the experience of pain and no appreciation of the joys that wealth can bring without having first suffered the miseries of poverty.

And as it was Jim’s intention – indeed, the very key that wound the very clockwork motor that powered his very being (verily) – that he should shortly become rich, the squalor of his rooms afforded him a certain cerebral satisfaction.

And how would it be that Jim might achieve his ambition? Why, through the science of betting, of course. For James Arbuthnot Pooley was a dedicated Man of the Turf. What pennies Jim managed to acquire, he invested, day upon day upon day, in his quest for wealth through the medium of the Six-Horse Super-Yankee Accumulator Bet.

The Punter’s Dream.

This particular dream had only once, as betting history records, been brought to waking reality. And to a Brentford man it had been, one Steven Montague Dean, son of Cyrus Garstang Dean, supplier of winged heels to the classically inspired gentry. The year was 1928, coincidentally the year that Brentford United had won the FA Cup for the second time. And whilst Jack Lane was being carried shoulder high through the flower-bedecked streets of the borough, Steven Montague Dean had stolen silently away with his winnings, leaving the family firm to flounder. And was never seen again.

Local rumour held that Mr Dean had spent his winnings purchasing a kingdom somewhere in Afghanistan, where he installed himself in a palace of ivory and spent the rest of his life in the company of concubines.

Jim Pooley had a similar future all mapped out for himself.

Upon Jim’s bedroom mantelpiece there stood a lone, framed photograph. It was of Steven Montague Dean, clipped from a 1920s copy of the Brentford Mercury that Jim had come across in the Memorial Library.

A single candle oft-times burned before this photograph.

Pooley had by now arisen from his bed. He had shaved and bathed, abulted, suited and booted, and now he set off for the day in search of his fortune. His rooms were in Moby Dick Terrace and, following the course taken by Mahatma Campbell two hours previously, Jim marched purposefully up the terrace, turning left at the Ealing Road and passing Bob the Bookie’s.

Jim would presently return to Bob the Bookie’s.

Jim now entered Peg’s Paper Shop.

“Watchamate, Norman,” said Jim, a-greeting the shopkeeper.

“Watchamate, Jim,” Norman replied.

“Spring cleaning?” Jim asked.

Norman sighed. Deeply. “Tell me, what do you see?” he asked.

“A gingham pinafore about your shoulders and a feather duster in your hand.”

“Yes,” said Norman and he sighed once again. “Your eyes do not deceive you. Where there’s muck, there’s brass, they say, and a penny saved is a penny earned.”

“Right,” said Jim, giving the shop a visual once-over. It was as ever it had been (and in the Brentford shape of things, as it ever should be) wretched. The sweetie jars lining its sagging shelves were the same jars that Jim had gazed longingly at as a child. Several actually contained the selfsame sweets. The faded adverts for tobaccos and snuffs – products that were now little more than memory – still patched over the Edwardian wallpaper. The cracked glass-fronted counter presented a fearsome, if dusty, display of out-of-date fireworks. The video section was velvet with dust. The lino was yellow and so was the ceiling. Colour co-ordinated. Just so.

“It’s all just so,” said Jim. “Why would you wish to dust it?” And here a tremulous tone entered Pooley’s voice. “You haven’t won the Pools, have you?”

“The Pools?” Norman scratched at his brow with the non-feathered end of his duster. “Have you become bereft of your senses?”

“It’s a personal philosophy thing,” Jim explained, inadequately. “So you’re just having a little dust?”

“Peg,” said Norman, which explained things more than adequately.

“A Sporting Life and five Woodbines please,” said Jim. “And I have the right money and everything.”

Norman placed his feather duster upon the counter and sought out the Woodbines. They were to be found where they were always to be found. Except today they were not to be found, because Norman had run out of Woodbines and forgotten to order any more.

“I’m out,” said Norman.

“That is a statement easily proved erroneous,” said Jim, turning a copy of the Brentford Mercury in his direction and perusing the front page, but failing to take in the dire headline regarding the terrible fate that most probably lay in store for Brentford’s football ground. “You are not out, but clearly here. Body and soul. Mind and spirit. Duster and pinnie and all.”

“Out of Woodbines,” said the shopkeeper.

“Out of Woodbines?” It was Jim’s turn to scratch at his head and in deference to Norman, he, too, did so with the feather duster. “You’re never out of Woodbines.”

“Am today.” Norman plucked the feather duster from Jim’s hand, a hand which now grasped it rather too firmly. Brightly coloured feathers fluttered towards the linoleum. “Look what you’ve done to my duster.”

“Out of Woodbines?” Jim now shook his hungover head and attempted to digest this unthinkable intelligence. “I don’t know what to say.”

“You could say, ‘I’d like a packet of Senior Service instead and here’s an extra two and sixpence for a new duster.’”

“I could,” said Jim, “but I think it most unlikely that I would.”

“How about five Capstan Full Strength and two bob for the duster, then?”

“I think I’ll just take the Sporting Life. There might be a packet of Woodbines left in Neville’s machine at The Swan.”

“Ah, no.” Norman dithered. He was a businessman, was Norman. He also considered himself an entrepreneur. It was more than his soul could stand to lose a sale. “Just hold on,” said the entrepreneurial shopkeeper, “I have something here that I think might interest you.”

“Is it one of the Hydra’s teeth?” asked Jim. “I’ve always been interested in seeing what those lads look like.”

“New fags,” said Norman. “A salesman brought them in yesterday – they’re on a promotional offer. They are most inexpensive. In fact, you’ll get ten for the price of five Woodbines.”

“Ten for the price of five?” Jim considered the unlikelihood of such an offer. It was surely the stuff of fantasy. “Let me have a look at these fags,” he said.

Norman hastened to oblige his potential customer. He delved amongst boxes behind the counter and presently brought to light a garish-looking package.

Jim cast a doubtful eye over it. “It’s rather bright,” he observed.

“Bright and breezy,” said Norman. “A little like your good self, if you’ll pardon me saying so.”

Jim now made a doubtful face. Norman broke open the garish-looking package to expose a dozen similarly garish-looking packets of cigarettes. He held one up before Pooley’s face.

“Dadarillos,” said Norman, and then read aloud from the packet, “‘Dadarillo Super-Dooper Kings are an all-new smoking taste sensation, a blend of the finest long-grain tobaccos and an extra-special secret ingredient that —’”

“I don’t like the sound of them,” said Jim.

“But look at the length of the blighters.”