 Tied up in Tinsel, by Nioh Marsh. The book's dedication reads, for my godson, Nicholas Dacre's Mannings, when he grows up. CHAPTER ONE HALBURDS In my sire, said Hillary Bill Tasman, joining the tips of his fingers, was flung into penury by the great slump he commenced to scrap-merchant—you don't mind my talking—not at all. Thank you. When I so describe his activities, I do not indulge in fachetsie. He went into partnership in a rag-and-bone way with my uncle Burt Smith, who was already equipped with a horse-and-cart and the experience of a short lifetime—uncle, by the way, is a courtesy title. Yes. You will meet him to-morrow. My sire, who was newly widowed, paid for his partnership by enlarging the business and bringing into it such items of family property as he had contrived to hide from his ravenous creditors. They included a mison-bowl of considerable monetary, though in my opinion little aesthetic value. My uncle Burt, lacking expertise in the higher reaches of his profession, would no doubt have knocked off this and other heirlooms to the nearest fence. My father, however, provided him with such written authority as to clear him of any suspicion of chicanery and sent him to Bond Street, where he drove a bargain that made him blink. Splendid! Could you keep your hands as they are? I think so. They prospered. By the time I was five they had two carts and two horses and a tidy account in the bank. I congratulate you, by the way, upon making no allusion to Steptoe and Son. I rather judge my new acquaintances under that heading. My father developed an unsuspected flair for trade, and taking advantage of the depression bought in a low market and after a period of acute anxiety sold in a high one. There came a day when, wearing his best suit and the tie to which he had every right, he sold the last of his family possessions at an exorbitant price to King Farouk, with whom he was tolerably acquainted. It was a Venetian chandelier of unparalleled vulgarity. Fancy! This transaction led to most rewarding sequels, terminated only by His Majesty's death, at which time my father had established a shop in South Malton Street, while Uncle Bird presided over a fleet of carts and horses, maintaining his hold on the milieu that best suited him, but greatly increasing his expertise. And you? I, until I was seven years old, I lodged with my father and adopted Uncle in a two-room apartment in Smalls Yard, Cheapjack Lane, EC-4. Sample complete. Ready to continue?