Post by Montparnasse nó Bryony on Aug 28, 2011 19:00:47 GMT -5
[With apologies to Victor Hugo - and also for the excessive cant. I'm presuming Magpie actually learned to talk, err, proper during his time at Bryony]
What's it gunna be then, eh?
An everyday question, eh?
But when it came to countin the blunt, which I was doing, cross-legged, on a table at the back o'the Medecant's Cloak, it'd been decentish, far better'n when I was diving for m' dinner.
I'd had five fat culls chasing their own tails in futile pursuit of Judith in a three-card Monte I'd run from a street corner that afternoon. Flush in the pocket, and foxed to boot: my favourite culls to bilk. And bilked they were, t'the nines. No mere green-head bantling I.
Montparnasse the Magnificent, flash t'every move on the board.
So.
What's it gunna be then, eh?
I'd enough for several meals t' come. And even per'aps a new coat, for this 'un was tattered at the cuffs and there was the bloodstain and the blade-tear, and you can't be a beau-trap wivout the togs. O' course there was also the fact I'd been puntin on tick while at low ebb. The rightly thing to do, I knew, would be t'make good m' debts, but what with Oliver being in town, there was a game tonight, for all the swellest swells of the rumest coves, and I had the buy-in right there in m' hands.
My blood was hot for it. Not just the winning. But the game. Although mebbe winning is the game. I dun' know. Just knew that I wanted it hard enough to make m' palms itch. Truth is, I like stealin more than 'avin and I like cheatin more than playin. Way I see it: any nick ninny flat can get what he deserves. It's gettin what you don't deserve what counts. Still, philosophifications aside, the chink would be nice. That way I'd have th' food, and th' coat, and more besides. And th' pleasure of it all.
I tucked m' mint away for laters, and idled m' time away instead in practice. I usually carry a deck or two or three or four about m' scrawny person. I can make those devil's books dance – 's not so very different from m' cloutin days. I riffled and sprung and cut and false shuffled and false cut, I dealt from the top, from the bottom, from the middle, did my jogs and double lifts, flashed and flourished, glided and glimpsed, passed and palmed, dazzled m'self with m' own brilliance. A few passin punters thought it was but trickery and threw some centimes over. Nothing to what I 'ad coming to me (so I thought) but I don't scorn even parings.
What's it gunna be then, eh?
To the game, went I. It was big business, believe it, but the final five were m'self (The Magnicient Montparnasse), Babet, quite a Captain Sharp by his own accountin, Claquesous the bit-faker, Gueleme a prig napper and knight o'the road, and nun other than Vautrin the prince o' thieves hi'self, needing no introduction even to gentlefolk I bet. The Green Lady is a poxy jade, and many worship there, but Montparnasse ain't fool enough to make offerings at her fickle altar, no, not when I 'ave a fast tongue and faster fingers.
Quite the dance, it was. And though m' heart pattered like fallin rain my eyes and hands stayed steady true. The winning was the sweetest I've ever tasted in all my thirteen winters – and all my own doing, which made it sweeter still. I even remembering, walkin home through the darky, and the scotch-mist, the clink heavy in my pockets, wonderin in sudden sadness how I'd ever know such a thrill again. To play, to cheat, to win, better'n all the other lays I knew. All m' petty sharping was nothing, the life seemed small and m' fingers itched again to feel the subtle slide of smooth card between 'em.
Distraction ain't so sensible a hobby where I come from. From the shadows came Vautrin's boys, a fine group o' cudgelliers, strictly business. I glanced around, looking for some place to run – another of m' many talents - but they had me surrounded.
“How dost do my buffs?” I said, cheerily, tryin to pretend like I wasn't in for a basting.
“Crash the bite,” was the only reply not delivered by fists or feet.
And now we come to the right melancholy part of the story – the one where Montparnasse the Magnificent really thought he was gunna die, and very nearly did. They say your life flashes before your eyes before you snuff it and mine did, and it was right shit. I remembered the gnawing cold of winter nights, the dull ache of hunger, the unendin misery of not-havin.
Fuck this, I thought, to myself, coming back to my broken body in a haze of such pain it almost jerked me back into th' darkness.
And that was the thought that kept me goin as I crawled my way through m' blood to Shona.
What's it gunna be then, eh?
An everyday question, eh?
But when it came to countin the blunt, which I was doing, cross-legged, on a table at the back o'the Medecant's Cloak, it'd been decentish, far better'n when I was diving for m' dinner.
I'd had five fat culls chasing their own tails in futile pursuit of Judith in a three-card Monte I'd run from a street corner that afternoon. Flush in the pocket, and foxed to boot: my favourite culls to bilk. And bilked they were, t'the nines. No mere green-head bantling I.
Montparnasse the Magnificent, flash t'every move on the board.
So.
What's it gunna be then, eh?
I'd enough for several meals t' come. And even per'aps a new coat, for this 'un was tattered at the cuffs and there was the bloodstain and the blade-tear, and you can't be a beau-trap wivout the togs. O' course there was also the fact I'd been puntin on tick while at low ebb. The rightly thing to do, I knew, would be t'make good m' debts, but what with Oliver being in town, there was a game tonight, for all the swellest swells of the rumest coves, and I had the buy-in right there in m' hands.
My blood was hot for it. Not just the winning. But the game. Although mebbe winning is the game. I dun' know. Just knew that I wanted it hard enough to make m' palms itch. Truth is, I like stealin more than 'avin and I like cheatin more than playin. Way I see it: any nick ninny flat can get what he deserves. It's gettin what you don't deserve what counts. Still, philosophifications aside, the chink would be nice. That way I'd have th' food, and th' coat, and more besides. And th' pleasure of it all.
I tucked m' mint away for laters, and idled m' time away instead in practice. I usually carry a deck or two or three or four about m' scrawny person. I can make those devil's books dance – 's not so very different from m' cloutin days. I riffled and sprung and cut and false shuffled and false cut, I dealt from the top, from the bottom, from the middle, did my jogs and double lifts, flashed and flourished, glided and glimpsed, passed and palmed, dazzled m'self with m' own brilliance. A few passin punters thought it was but trickery and threw some centimes over. Nothing to what I 'ad coming to me (so I thought) but I don't scorn even parings.
What's it gunna be then, eh?
To the game, went I. It was big business, believe it, but the final five were m'self (The Magnicient Montparnasse), Babet, quite a Captain Sharp by his own accountin, Claquesous the bit-faker, Gueleme a prig napper and knight o'the road, and nun other than Vautrin the prince o' thieves hi'self, needing no introduction even to gentlefolk I bet. The Green Lady is a poxy jade, and many worship there, but Montparnasse ain't fool enough to make offerings at her fickle altar, no, not when I 'ave a fast tongue and faster fingers.
Quite the dance, it was. And though m' heart pattered like fallin rain my eyes and hands stayed steady true. The winning was the sweetest I've ever tasted in all my thirteen winters – and all my own doing, which made it sweeter still. I even remembering, walkin home through the darky, and the scotch-mist, the clink heavy in my pockets, wonderin in sudden sadness how I'd ever know such a thrill again. To play, to cheat, to win, better'n all the other lays I knew. All m' petty sharping was nothing, the life seemed small and m' fingers itched again to feel the subtle slide of smooth card between 'em.
Distraction ain't so sensible a hobby where I come from. From the shadows came Vautrin's boys, a fine group o' cudgelliers, strictly business. I glanced around, looking for some place to run – another of m' many talents - but they had me surrounded.
“How dost do my buffs?” I said, cheerily, tryin to pretend like I wasn't in for a basting.
“Crash the bite,” was the only reply not delivered by fists or feet.
And now we come to the right melancholy part of the story – the one where Montparnasse the Magnificent really thought he was gunna die, and very nearly did. They say your life flashes before your eyes before you snuff it and mine did, and it was right shit. I remembered the gnawing cold of winter nights, the dull ache of hunger, the unendin misery of not-havin.
Fuck this, I thought, to myself, coming back to my broken body in a haze of such pain it almost jerked me back into th' darkness.
And that was the thought that kept me goin as I crawled my way through m' blood to Shona.