The woman giggled and bought the perfume.

“I can’t pay you a wage,” Lenny said to Dave. “But I tell you what I’ll do: I’ll give you ten percent of everything you take.”

“It’s a deal,” said Dave, and he joined Lenny behind the display.

“Keep the money in your pockets and we’ll settle up later.” Lenny gave him a “float” of a pound in coins to make change.

Dave picked up a bottle of Yardley, hesitated, smiled at a passing woman, and said: “The classiest perfume on the market.”

She smiled back and walked on.

He kept trying, imitating Lenny’s patter, and after a few minutes he sold a bottle of Joy by Patou for two-and-six. He soon knew all Lenny’s lines: “Not every woman has the flair to wear this one, but you . . . Only buy this if there’s a man you really want to please . . . Discontinued line, the government banned this scent because it’s too sexy . . .”

The crowds were cheerful and always ready to laugh. They dressed up to come to the market: it was a social event. Dave learned a whole range of new slang for money: a sixpenny piece was a Tilbury, five shillings was a dollar, and a ten-shilling note was half a knicker.

The time passed quickly. A waitress from a nearby café brought two sandwiches of thick white bread with fried bacon and ketchup, and Lenny paid her and gave one of the sandwiches to Dave, who was surprised to learn that it was lunchtime. The pockets of his drainpipe jeans grew heavy with coins, and he recalled with pleasure that 10 percent of the money was his. At midafternoon he noticed that there were hardly any men on the streets, and Lenny explained that they had all gone to a football match.

Toward the end of the afternoon, business slowed to almost nothing. Dave thought the money in his pockets might amount to as much as five pounds, in which case he had made ten shillings, the amount of his normal allowance—and he could go to the Jump Club.

At five o’clock Lenny began to dismantle the stall, and Dave helped to put the unsold goods in cardboard boxes, then they loaded everything into Lenny’s yellow Bedford van.

When they counted Dave’s money, he had taken just over nine pounds. Lenny gave him a pound, a little more than the agreed ten percent, “because you helped me pack up.” Dave was delighted: he had made twice the amount his father should have given him this morning. He would gladly do this every Saturday, he thought, especially if it meant he did not have to listen to his father’s preaching.

They went to the nearest pub and got pint glasses of beer. “You play the guitar a bit, don’t you?” Lenny said as they sat at a grimy table with a full ashtray.

“Yes.”

“What sort of instrument have you got?”

“An Eko. It’s a cheap copy of a Gibson.”