“Ellie has the constitution of a horse,” she said. “You are simply out of work and looking for inspiration. You won’t find it spying on her.”

“She could have been set upon by thieves, be lying in a ditch somewhere unshriven, and all you can think to do is scold me for caring about her.”

The tea was actual tea, not some imitation concocted of meadow weeds and the orts and leavings of a tea chest. Mick’s generosity was being put to good use.

“You care about yourself,” Pamela said, taking the other chair at the table and situating the baby in her lap. “Not that I blame you for it. The agencies aren’t hiring?”

“The better families are leaving for their Yuletide holidays in the country, while half the yeomanry has come to Town looking for work now that the harvest is in. Any merchant will hire his cousin’s neighbor’s niece’s boy from Greater Sheepshite before he’ll turn to the agencies.”

The baby reached for Jack’s teacup, which was still half full of hot drink. Jack moved it aside and offered the child his hand, for his pockets were empty of all treasure.

“Do you think Ellie can find you a job?” Pamela asked.

The question was merely curious rather than derisive. Jack took encouragement from that. “I’m almost as good with numbers as Ellie is, and as you said, I know all the rigs and schemes even better than she does. I can keep honest books, and I often have.”

Once, he’d even alerted an employer to a valet padding his accounts. Two weeks later, the mistress’s nacre-handled penknife had been “found” by a housemaid among Jack’s effects, and he had learned a valuable lesson. If you’re not working a rig, somebody else in the household likely is.

“Clerks don’t earn much,” Pamela said. “Not at first. You could ask Ellie if any of the banks are hiring.”

“I can’t ask her if I can’t find her.”

“Ask among the clerks from Wentworth and Penrose,” Pamela said. “They doubtless have their favorite pubs and chop shops, the same as all of London. The City thrives on the custom of the counting house clerks.”

The City of London, which encompassed the walled bounds of old Roman Londinium, had traditionally been the safest place for merchants to transact business. As Britain’s trading empire had grown, the heart of English finance had remained within and near those walls even as the metropolis had sprawled to the west along the Thames.

The infant seized Jack’s thumb and, like every healthy baby, tried to put what he grasped into his mouth.

“Ask where my own cousin has got off to?” Jack mused around a mouthful of bread. If Ellie had spun some yarn for the bank about influenza or lung fever, nosy questions could undermine that story.