“Oh,” went Will. And, “Oh.”

He was in a Victorian street. The Whitechapel Road. And if the smell of horse manure was not sufficient to have him from his feet, then the thousand other unknown and unwholesome smells and the noise and the clamour and the colours and the all over everything should have. Done. So to speak.

Will blinked his eyes and stared. There was just so much. So much stench and so much noise and so much busyness. There was hurly-burly here. And speed too. A speed that was hitherto unknown to Will. People rushed about in their busyness. Pedestrians fairly jogged and high-wheeled vehicles drawn by horses clattered by at a most alarming rate. Folk walked slowly in Will’s day and age, the public tram moved slowly, everything moved slowly. But not here.

Will flattened himself against a wall of brick, made gay by many colourful posters. Here, one advertised the Electric Alhambra Music Hall in the Strand, where Little Tich peformed his ever-popular Big Boot Dance, “to the great appreciation of all classes”. And here was another for Count Otto Black’s Circus Fantastique, “A Carnival of Curiosities, An Odyssey of Oddities, A Burlesque of the Bizarre”. And there were posters which extolled the virtues of tobaccos and toothpowders, spats and spyglasses, patent medicines and public foot spas. And also for automata, “the perfect gentleman’s gentleman”.

Will took small and careful breaths to steady himself, and viewed the busy folk coming and going. They were slim folk, these. Slim as Will himself, and some far more so. These were achingly thin, their faces pinched, their cheekbones sharp, their bright eyes peeping from dark cadaverous sockets. They were wretchedly clad in rags of the Victorian persuasion and yet they were trading folk, who all had something to sell.

Will watched them and listened, and heard for the first time the now legendary Cries of Old London.

“Two-by-one, two-by-one, that’s the stuff for you, old son.”

“Soleless shoes and toeless socks, by the bag and by the box.”

“Cardboard offcuts, take your pick. Rusty nails and bits of stick.”

“Mud for sale, penny a pail.”

“Bags of air, bags of air. Get ’em while there’s some to spare.”

Will shook his shaky head in some surprise at these now legendary Cries of Old London. And although there was a great deal of busyness, a great deal of hurly-burly, and a great deal of shouting, no one seemed to be doing a great deal of trade. Except for the peddler who sold used earwax. He was going great guns. But then this was a Tuesday, although Will was not to know that yet.

Will viewed the street sellers and the comers and goers and shook his head some more and smiled unto himself. He was here in the past. He was really truly here.

“Guv’nor?”

Will looked down. A small and ragged lad looked up at him.

“Guv’nor?” said this lad once more.

Will’s fingers still attended to his nose. “Wad is dis?” he asked in a nasal tone. And then he said, “Magic”

“Magic?” said the lad.

“Magic,” said Will. “I’m talking to a Victorian.”

The lad offered Will a quizzical glance, which set itself into a quizzical stare. His face was disgustingly filthy. A crust of bogies lodged between his nose and upper lip.[7] He wore a ragged blue cloth coat and a pair of ragged corduroy trousers, secured about the waist by knotted string. Around his scrawny neck he sported a colourful ’kerchief.

“Magic?” said the lad once more. “I seen you come, guv’nor. Gawd pickle my plonker if I ain’t. You fell right out of the sky. Are you with the aerial cavalry?”

The lad’s accent fascinated Will. This would be Cockney. Will had heard the accent before, in movies on the Movie Classics Channel. Spoken by the greatest exponent of the urban dialect that had ever lived, the now and ever legendary Dick Van Dyke.

“I …” Will paused. The enormity of all this was now pressing in upon him from all sides. He would do well to keep his calm, although he felt like leaping up and down and shouting at the top of his voice. He was here! Really truly here! In the past he loved so dearly! Trapped perhaps, for the time machine was splintered wreckage. But alive, perhaps truly alive for the first time ever. And upon an adventure beyond any he could ever have dreamed of.

It was very difficult not to shout.

But Will, with effort, maintained his calm.

“Not the aerial cavalry,” said Will. “I’m, er, just a traveller.”

“I seen you,” said the lad once more. “Seen you come down from the sky.”

“I was crossing the street,” said Will. “Carrying a chair.”

“You is a flyer. I seen you, guv’nor. Take us on. I’s a willing apprentice. Good wiv me Alices.[8] Gawd tan my todger if I ain’t. I’ll polish yer rhythms[9] and buff up yer patent[10] and—”

“Please go away,” said Will. “Go away and have a wash, or something.” He shooed at the ragged lad with his non-nose-holding hand. “I’m a traveller, nothing more.”

“Where you from, guv’nor? India is it, or Americey? You got a weirdy whistle[11] on you, and no mistake.” The lad fingered the fabric of Will’s trousers.

“Whistle and flute,” said Will. “Pair of trousers. That’s Cockney rhyming slang. I know that one.”

“G’us a penny, guv’nor,” the lad tugged at Will’s trousers. “You talk like a toff, so you must be a toff, Gawd jump on my John Thomas if you ain’t. G’us a penny for a bun. I ain’t eaten today and me belly thinks me throat’s been cut.”[12]

“I have no money.” Will detached himself from the ragged rascal’s grip. “We don’t have money where I come from.”

“If it’s foreign currency you hold, I can work out the exchange rate on me Babbage.”

“Your Babbage?” Will spoke the words slowly and with care.

“In me Davy.”[13] The lad delved into his pocket and whisked out a small brass contrivance; a pocket calculator.

“Whoa!” went Will. “Let me see that.”

He reached down but the lad removed himself a pace.

“I only want to look at it,” said Will.

“As if you ain’t seen one before.”

“I’ve never seen one,” said Will.

The lad whistled. “You must be from distant parts,” said he. “Is it pink on the map where you come from?”

“Pink on the map? The British Empire, I see.”

“Ah, stuff you,” said the lad. “If you won’t make free with some bangers,[14] would you mind if I just picked your Davys? I’ve a living to earn, Gawd scramble my scrotes if I ain’t. A silk handkerchief will do me, or a gold fob watch if you have one about yourself.”

“Enough now,” said Will. “Kindly go away.”

“You can touch me willy for sixpence,” said the lad.

“Now that is enough,” said Will. “Go away at once.”

“Hm,” went the lad, cupping his filthy chin between an equally filthy finger and thumb. “You’re a rum ’n, guv’nor. I can’t make you out. I think I’ll just whistle for me gang and have ’em bludgeon you to death. Then we can split whatever spoils you carry.”

Will looked down at the lad and sighed deeply. “What is your name?” he asked.

“Winston,” said the lad, saluting Will.

“Well, Winston, have you quite finished?”

The lad grinned up at Will. “I’ve a thought or two left in me as it ’appens,” he said. “Gawd knacker me ’nads if I ain’t. And there’s always the chance that you might marvel at the audacity of at least one of me thoughts and compensate me ’andsomely. For instance, I don’t feel that I pleaded ’unger with sufficient conviction, this perhaps being because I’ve just eaten. I might—”