The Revenge of Captain Paine

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The brickbat whistled through the air as Pyke slammed it down on to the wooden stall, snapping the stall in half and sending its contents tumbling on to the cobblestones. Another lunge with the same weapon shattered a barrel filled with pickled cucumbers and herrings, the sour liquid spraying all those standing within a ten-yard radius. Drawing his sleeve across his mouth, Pyke stared into the hooded eyes of the man standing in front of him, ignoring the sea of sullen faces gathered in the walled pen at one end of Petticoat Lane.

His name was Gold.

Ever since Pyke’s bank had started to court the burgeoning slop trade, Pyke had been at loggerheads with Petticoat Lane usurers like Gold: usurers who regarded the business of lending money to small businessmen — who, in turn, paid slave wages to growing numbers of workers in order to produce an ever-proliferating supply of underpriced goods — as their natural domain.

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