It became his task to keep his eyes open and his ears to the ground-or to people’s back doors - and to search out any other likely source of new stock. This was heady stuff for Benny. It certainly made a change from delving in the mud of the Rochdale canal whenever the locksmen lowered the level of the water, to sift out coal that had been spilled by passing barges. Now he would swagger about the posher streets of the city, sometimes as far as Piccadilly Gardens or the streets around Philips Park, pretending to be Sexton Blake as a change from Felix the Cat, hiding round corners, eavesdropping on conversations at bus stops. What he would really have liked was a disguise, but failing that all he could do was pull the blue peaked cap down over his ears and hope for the best. Whenever he heard a couple of gossiping old matrons, he’d shadow them like the great detective himself, hoping they would let drop some titillating piece of information, or lead him to yet more parlour cast-offs.
