'I pay eight shillink for vun veek and Saturday only no verk. Half-past seven you are startink, eight o'clock you are finishink. Tomorrow half-past seven o'clock report, if you please, Mr Baskin, who is also here the senior clerk.'

Mr Goldstein pointed his stubby finger at the abacus, 'Gut!' he said.

Unclenching his remaining fingers he patted the air in front of him as though he were patting the abacus in approval, giving Mary the distinct impression that he had not employed her, but her frame of wooden beads.

Mary had to restrain herself from bursting into tears of joy.

'Thank you, sir, Mr Goldstein! You'll not regret it! Thank you and Gawd bless you, sir!'

Mr Goldstein grunted and taking up the bell on the desk he rang it loudly several times. Mary now became conscious that, in the short time she'd been in Mr Goldstein's office, the warehouse had filled with the hum of people going about their work. Now the buzz and clatter stopped as the bell rang out.

'Mr Baskin!' Mr Goldstein shouted into the sudden calm.

Presently a tall and very thin, Ichabod-Crane-looking man, stooping almost double, opened the wide door and entered the office. Mr Goldstein, writing in the ledger, ignored his presence for a full minute while the man stood with his hands clasped in the manner of a mendicant, his head downcast and his eyes avoiding contact with Mary.

Looking up from his ledger Mr Goldstein pointed directly at the abacus.

'Tomorrow Miss… ' he suddenly realised that he had not enquired as to Mary's name, '… Miss Abacus!' he added suddenly and smiled at Mary. 'Ja! I can call you this!' He returned his gaze to Mr Baskin, 'Tomorrow she is startink vork. You show her varehouse, please!'

'Very well, sir, at once, show her the warehouse is it, Mr Goldstein? I shall attend to Miss Aba… Abacus?' He paused. 'For what purpose may I ask? A visit is it?'

Mr Goldstein looked up. 'Clerk, she is new clerk!' he said impatiently and then returned his attention to the ledger.

'The position? A woman? New clerk?' Mr Baskin was clearly confused as though the three bits of information couldn't somehow be joined together in his mind.

'Ja, of course, Dummkopf! Next veek she is maybe havink your job!'

Mr Baskin stiffened to attention as the three bits of previously disparate information, with an almost audible clang, shunted into place in his mind.

Once outside the office and well clear she turned to the unfortunate Mr Baskin. 'Me name ain't Abacus, sir, it's Klerk, spelt with a "K", it's a Dutchie name, me father was a Dutchman.'

Mr Baskin looked directly at her for the first time. 'If Mr Goldstein says its Abacus, then that's what it be!' Mr Baskin sniffed. 'No arguments will be entered into and the contract is legal and binding.'

He paused and seemed to be thinking and, indeed, his expression suddenly brightened. 'Unless…' he began looking directly down at Mary again.

'What?' Mary asked suspiciously.

'You don't turn up for work tomorrow!' Mr Baskin's expression took on a most beseeching look and his voice carried a whining tone. 'It would be a most honourable and decent thing to do, Miss… Miss?'

'Klerk!'

'Ah!' Mr Baskin said pleased. 'Ah, yes, well that's it, then isn't it? That is precisely the situation! We have no position here for a Miss Klerk! No such person is known to us here! Mr Goldstein knows of no such person! I know of no such person! No such person exists, I'm very much afraid to say you're a missing person! You will not be commencing tomorrow, we shall not be expecting a Miss Klerk!'

Mr Baskin announced this as though Mary were some impostor whom, just in the nick of time, he had cleverly exposed and quickly undone.

Mary bristled. 'Why, sir, you can call me Miss Spotted Chamber Pot if you like, but this billet is the most important thing to 'appen to me in me 'ole bleedin' life! If I 'as to crawl over broken glass all the way from Whitechapel, you may be sure, sir, I'll be standin'

'ere large as life tomorrow an' all!'

Her change of name was not of great concern to Mary, for she had never been christened and her own surname had not served her particularly well in the past. Her new one, compliments of the little bottle-shaped man in the glass office, at the very least identified her with an object she loved. She decided she would happily become Mary Abacus.

'Mr Goldstein said as you should show me the ware-'ouse, sir, Mr Baskin,' Mary now declared timorously.

Despite the sour reception she'd received from Mr Baskin, it was quite the happiest day of Mary's life. The large warehouse was stacked to the ceiling with goods of every description intended for America and the colonies and the chief clerk, despite his foul mood, seemed to take some pride in pointing out the extent of Mr Goldstein's venture into commerce and shipping.

Upon their leaving Mr Goldstein's office Mr Baskin had sent word to Sergeant Lawrence to disperse the waiting men and to announce that the very first candidate had been found suitable by the redoubtable Mr Goldstein.

At the end of the tour, Mr Baskin turned to Mary with a sniff. 'Right then. Half-past seven tomorrow and if you're so much as a minute late you'll not be starting here, miss!' Then he escorted Mary to the door, merely grunting as she bid him a polite and, in her heart, a most ecstatic farewell. All the chief clerks in the world couldn't have dampened Mary's elation – she'd turned the Klerk into a Clerk and fulfilled the dearest wish of her dead father. 'Learn it well, my dearest child, for the beads, the beautiful Chinee beads, will set you free!'

To her surprise the sergeant seemed pleased to see her.

'Well then, miss, you could have blow'd me down with a fevva! Wonders will never cease, what a day an' age, eh?' He pointed to the abacus under Mary's arm. 'I mean 'is 'ebrew 'ighness takin' to your Chinee countin' machine contraption.' He seemed to know precisely what had taken place in the office with Mr Goldstein, though Mary couldn't imagine how this could possibly be.

'Ow did you know?' Mary asked happily, her eyes showing her surprise. 'The door was shut an' all!'

The old soldier patted her on the arm and then touched his forefinger to his nose.

'Never you mind that, miss! We 'ave ways an' means, ways an' means, there ain't much what escapes us!' He drew himself up to his full height. 'Mind, I can't say the gentlemen waitin' in line was too pleased, you getting the billet and being a woman an' all.'

He spread his hands and shrugged his shoulders. 'Don't suppose you can blame 'em, but it were curious, very curious, they 'ung about when I told 'em to scarper, then they done this chant, see, summink about a monkey. It were all very strange if you ask me, very queer indeed!'

Mary was only half listening, still feeling dizzy at her good fortune. 'I'm one now! Blimey! Fancy that, I'm a clerk!' Mary decided that she had never been quite as happy in her life.

And then the gatekeeper's words sunk in… then they done this most curious chant… summink about a monkey… The fog had cleared a little, though it was still not possible to see beyond a few feet. The chill returned to Mary's bones and she felt terrified to leave the gateman's side and enter the ghostly gloom of the docks.

She was about to ask if she could remain in the sergeant's hut until the fog lifted when he said cheerily, 'Go on, then, orf you go, miss. See you tomorrow! Mind your step now, men workin', lots of rope lyin' about.'

Mary had hardly walked for more than a minute when she felt the presence of people about her, fleeting shadows darting in front and to the side of her, boots scuffing on the wooden surface of the dockside. In the distance she heard the deep bray of a steamer groping its way up the Thames and the rattle and screech of cranes and winches and chains as they lowered cargo into and brought it out of invisible hatches. She was afraid to call out, thinking that the shadows about her might be dock workers. No noise other than fog-muffled footsteps came from the darting shapes around her, each of which seemed to be consumed by the mist before she could properly focus upon it. Somewhere a whistle blew three short peep-peeps, its shrill sound fattened by the thick air. A suffocating fear rose up within her and she felt the need to flee, though the fog was much too thick for her to attempt to do so. Then, so low that she thought at first she might have imagined it, she heard the hum of male voices and as suddenly the dark shapes looming formed a circle about her and the hum rose and rose and the monkey chant began: Mary, Mary, Bloody Mary Who does her sums on bead and rack Go away, you're too contrary You're the monkey, bloody monkey You're the monkey on our back!