Every householder knows the hazard; a man and a boy at the door selling something you don't want. Unless you feel strong, these whey-faced inadequates land you with anything from fake horoscopes or wobbly iron saucepans to a second-hand chariot with mock-silver wheel finials and a very small Medusa stencilled on the side, which you subsequently discover used to be painted crimson and had to have its bodywork remodelled after being battered to all Hades in a crash…
Larius and I became a man and a boy. Our load of black-market fitments gave us carte blanche to enter private estates. No one sent for the vigilantes. We shuffled round the coast, taking Nero up clinkered carriage-drives and sometimes back down them again five minutes afterwards; surprisingly often though, our visits took longer and our list of orders was longer when we left. Plenty of fine villas around the Bay of Neapolis now have British water pipes, and most did not acquire the goods as official ex-government stock. Several people took advantage of our cheap rates to renew their entire supplies.
I was not surprised; we had come knocking at the Corinthian portals of the rich. Their great-great-grandfathers may have filled the family coffers through honest toil in their olive groves or awards for political service (foreign booty, I mean), but subsequent generations kept themselves in credit by haggling for bargains kept under the counter after being smuggled into Italy without paying harbour-dues. They were matched in iniquity by their household stewards. These snooty rascals were getting new pipework for the price of cobnuts (and then creaming off a premium from their masters' accounts), but they still tried to slip us old iron rivets and funny Macedonian small change when they paid.
After a few days completely tongue-tied, Larius found his voice and worked up a sales patter that sounded as though he had been born in a basket under a market stall; what was more, I could trust him with the arithmetic. Soon we were quite enjoying selling pipes. The weather stayed wonderful, Nero was behaving, and we sometimes managed to arrive at a friendly kitchen door just as they were serving lunch.
Information seemed harder to come by than corn-meal cakes. We had called at almost every maritime villa between Baiae and Stabiae. Even the friendly ones denied knowledge of Crispus and his boat. I had wasted hours allowing arthritic door porters to reminisce about marching through Pannonia with some low-grade legion led by a syphilitic legate who was later cashiered. Meanwhile Larius was sauntering along piers to look for the Isis Africana; any day now some lad with a fishing line would suspect him of immoral overtures and push him in the drink.
Against such a negative background, huckstering lead began to pall. This was the dreary side of being an informer: asking routine questions which never produced results; wearing myself out while I strongly suspected I had missed the real point. My work dragged. Because of it I could never relax and enjoy my friends' companionship. My stomach felt queasy. All the mosquitoes in the Phlegraean marshes had discovered my presence and homed in for their seasonal treat. I missed Rome. I wanted a new woman, but although there were plenty available I never liked any I saw.