'Roger, you're my friend but you have the same penchant for mischief as a cat does for cream. You will either come home or I'll come for you. Do you understand?'

I did. To be perfectly honest Benjamin was the only person I was really frightened of and the only person I never lied to. Well, within reason. Yet, cats like cream and Shallot likes mischief.

I fell into bad company: some gentlemen of the road who skulked in the graveyard of St Paul's well beyond the sheriff's writ. They were led by a former cleric, a defrocked priest. I forget his name, we just called him Rat's Arse. He had the innocent face of an angel and one of the most eloquent mouths which ever drew breath. He could convince you black was white and night was day!

Rat's Arse persuaded me to raise money from our tight-fisted banker Waller so he could set up a molly house in an alleyway off Cock Lane. An exclusive brothel where gentlemen of leisure could take their ease. Of course he took the gold and I never saw him again. Well, alive that is. Two years later, whilst crossing Hampstead Heath, I passed the gallows and saw poor Rat's Arse tarred and gibbeted hanging by his neck. I said a little prayer. He was a villain but his heart was in the right place.

Anyway, old Waller came for me like a whippet after a rabbit. On the very afternoon I was fleeing the city he grabbed me by the arm in Paternoster Row. 'Shallot!' he screamed. 'Where's my money?'

(Have you noticed that about bankers? If you've got money, they'll lend it. If you haven't, they purse their lips and shake their heads.)