Well, I had never had anything on a scone apart from a scrape of butter, and I piled my scone high and proceeded to devour it. He watched, amused.

‘I see you prefer the high life to the fishing life,’ he observed, the mischievous grin flashing away. He poured the coffee and lit his pipe. ‘But I don’t think you live the high life now.’

Well, what could I do but shake my head?

‘Your folks have you skivvying, do they? I bet you can bait a line in no time and gut a fish in the blink of an eye. Break a chicken’s neck and have it in a pot quick as anything. I bet you can set a fire better than any London maid, and darn a sock neat as any seamstress could. I bet you can command the best price for your fish at that market.’

He had me to a tee.

‘But you don’t want any of that, do you? You want a fine house and a serving girl or two of your own.’

‘Mibbie,’ I replied. ‘But I hardly know you enough to talk about what I want and don’t want.’

He chuckled, but without much mirth, then changed tack.

‘So your old ma and da have some connections, eh?’ he went on, and I feared he might start asking questions about all of that. I already had a response, which was what we were to say to anyone who started asking questions about their side-line.

‘I don’t know anything about that,’ I answered. ‘But they are honest as the day is long and have sold fish for five generations at least.’

‘Five generations at least,’ he repeated. ‘Well, never mind all of that for a minute. Look, here.’ He pushed a small brown-paper packet across the table and nodded at me to unwrap it. He watched as I dabbed my mouth with my kerchief and wiped my hands before picking it up.

‘Wait! Don’t open it yet. Inhale its scent first.’

His voice was low now, conspiratorially so, and I swear his eyes and freckles got flashier; and I even declare that the room darkened, such was the drama of the moment. I put the packet to my lips, gently, and sniffed, trying to do so in a ladylike fashion, but of course I had never had to do anything in a ladylike fashion before, so it may have been a rather amateur attempt. But oh, the scent!

‘Perfume ingredients,’ he said. ‘Exquisite, too. Musk and ambergris and cinnamon and civet and myrrh. The perfumiers of London are clamouring for them. For gents’ wig-powders and ladies’ gloves. In fact all the upper crust is desperate for the most expensive scents; and the ladies of Covent Garden, and the opera-goers and the blue-bloods. Perfumes and potions and eaux de cologne.’

Perfumed gloves! What would Ma make of that? ‘So, you are a trader,’ I said.