“Take no notice,” said Jim. “Of anything. Just do your job and I’ll do mine and everything will be fine.”

“Oh yes, Jim. Certainly. But you know how people are. And about your job – there’s rumours about that. Well, let’s face it, I’ve known you and Mr Omally for years, coming in here to drink after hours. Have you ever actually had another job before this one?”

“Many,” said Jim. “Many, many, but none like this. What about you? Have you always been a barman?”

Mr Rumpelstiltskin shook his head. “I was a professional dog-walker once.”

“And what does that entail?”

“Walking dogs for people who can’t be bothered.”

“Really?” said Jim. “And was there money in that?”

“There was for a while, before the authorities found out.”

“Is professional dog-walking illegal, then?”

“Not as such, but what I did was.”

“I’m intrigued,” said Jim. “What happened?”

Mr Rumpelstiltskin did lookings to either side to assure himself that he wasn’t being overheard. “It was all Norman’s fault,” he whispered.

“Norman Hartnel? Not to be confused with the other Norman Hartnel?”

“Same fellow. I had this van, see. Picked up the dogs each day, put them into the van, drove them to the park and walked them. Then one day Norman happens by the park and asks me what I’m doing with all these dogs. So I tell him. And Norman says, ‘That’s a waste of energy.’ Which it was, because they used to drag me all over the place. Norman says, ‘Those dogs should be working for you,’ which had me a bit baffled. He came down to the park the next day and told me that he’d worked out a plan for me that would not only save me energy, but get the dogs to generate energy for me.”

“Whatever did he mean?” Pooley asked.

“I had no idea, but he explained it to me. Put the dogs inside big wheels, he said, like hamster wheels, and connect these wheels up to generate electricity.”

“That sounds like Norman,” said Jim. “And it sounds like a good idea, actually.”

“That’s what I thought. And Norman built the wheels for me, out of Meccano. There was a lot of Meccano involved. We put a can of dog food in front of each wheel and the dogs ran and ran, for most of the day. The power they generated provided the electricity for my home.”

Jim Pooley laughed. “It’s pretty brilliant,” said he.

“That’s what I thought. Then Norman had this other idea, that he said would save me money on buying the dog food and generate enough electricity to power the entire street. He said he’d go into business with me and build all the extra wheels.”

“You were going to take on more dogs?” said Jim.

“No,” said Mr Rumpelstiltskin. “Not dogs, other animals. Norman had this idea about perpetual motion. He said he had a ‘spin’ on it. It would be called Petual Motion.”

“Go on,” said Jim, already halfway through his pint.

“It wouldn’t just be dogs, you see, there’d be a whole series of wheels, starting out big, then getting smaller, then big again, positioned in a circle. We built them in a rented warehouse down by the docks. It worked like this: there were six wheels; in the first there was a dog, and in the one in front of the dog there was a cat – so the dog chased after the cat, see. And the cat ran away from the dog, so both wheels turned.”

“Go on,” said Jim once again.

“In the wheel in front of the cat there was a wheel with a mouse in it. And in the wheel in front of that, an elephant.”

“An elephant?” said Jim. “Where did you get an elephant from?”

“We, er, borrowed one from the zoo – we couldn’t think of anything else that would run away from a mouse.”

“I understand,” said Jim. “Go on some more.”

“We got a lion in front of the elephant, to run away from that, and a buffalo in front of the lion, to run away from that, and then we were back to the dog in the circle, you see, in front of the stampeding buffalo in the wheel behind it. All in a circle, they all ran and ran. Petual motion. Powered the entire street.”

“And then the police arrived,” said Jim.

“Exactly,” said Mr Rumpelstiltskin. “There was a right fuss. Norman and I were lucky to stay out of prison.”

“This is the first time I’ve ever heard this story,” said Jim, “and I certainly never read about the case in the newspapers.”

“It was a very long time ago. We were teenagers then. And I bet you never read the papers when you were a teenager.”

“Only Sporting Life,” said Jim. “But you do have to hand it to that Norman. He certainly does come up with some inventive ideas.”

“Do you really think he’s going to make millions out of those patents he claims to have?”

Pooley shrugged. “It all seems a bit doubtful, doesn’t it? I mean, can you really imagine Norman doing something that would gain him a place in history?” And Pooley laughed.

And Mr Rumpelstiltskin laughed.

And Winston the ill-washed youth laughed also, although in Norman’s shop.

“These are brilliant gobstoppers,” he said.

“Have more,” said Norman. “Put some in your pocket for later.”

“Thanks,” said Winston, digging into the jar and filling his pockets.

“Tell me about you and Mr Wells,” said Norman. “I mean, this is incredible, you both appearing here, now, in my kitchenette. And thank you for nudging his elbow and saving my life.”

“I could see you ain’t the King of Darkness, gov’nor. Not with them patched elbows.”

“But what is all this business about the King of Darkness?”

“Mr Wells’ sacred mission. It happened by accident. He just wanted to try out his machine, see if it really worked. He was to present it before Queen Victoria the next day. Perhaps he will go back to the same time that we left, after he’s finished his mission.”

“But this King of Darkness?” Norman persisted.

“Well, it happened like this. Like you heard, I snuck aboard his Time Machine when it was taking off. Yeah, I was in his house on the nick, I admit it. We landed the first time about five years in the future from now.” Winston took his shabby self over to Norman’s front window and peered out through the grimy pane. “It’s all very different then than it is now, Gawd flatten me ol’ fella if it ain’t. There’s technology, see, like you ain’t got now, at this time, but like we had back in the Victorian days. Wireless transmission of energy, it was, electricity without wires.”

“Ah,” said Norman. “That.”

“Flying hansom cabs,” Winston continued, “and a space programme. But none of that survived – it’s as if it all vanished. But it will come back. It will be everywhere in a few years from now. And the one who brings it back, that’s the King of Darkness – the Devil in the shape of a man. He wants to rule the world, you see, and hasten the Apocalypse. And Mr Wells has this bee in his bonnet that somehow it’s all his fault and he has to stop it.”

“I really don’t think I understand any of this,” said Norman. “Why exactly did you and Mr Wells appear in my kitchenette, right now?”

“Because you were running the computer program, the King of Darkness’s computer program, with all the magic in it and all the nicked plans. Mr Wells did all these mathematical calculations – he worked it out.”

“Nicked plans?” said Norman in as normal a tone as he could muster up. “What is this about nicked plans?”

“All the technical gubbins – the wireless transmission of energy, all that stuff. The stuff that was somehow vanished out of history so that the King of Darkness couldn’t get his evil hands on the plans and do all the awful stuff that he would do with them if he got hold of them, if you know what I mean.”

“He sounds a very bad sort, this King of Darkness fellow,” said Norman.

“He is.” Winston stuffed another gobstopper into his mouth. “Mr Wells is determined to stop him, so he zeroed in on the computer program. The computer is destroyed now, so that should be that for now, in this time.”