City Vignette

The bum came shambling out from the kerbside shadows, then just stood there wavering, uncertain in his own lankiness and ill-fitting rags, like a clown on stilts waiting for someone to throw a bucket of water over him.
"Change?" he pleaded, holding his cupped hands out as if expecting a cascade of shiny coins to suddenly fall from the clouds.
I gave him whatever was stuck in my pockets, forty-five cents or so, or possibly twenty-seven, it was hard to tell in the dark. Perhaps he could save up and buy a burger in a few weeks time.
"What are you going to do?" I asked him "In several years time, when it's all debit cards and plastic transactions and nobody carries any actual cash anymore? There won't be any spare change then."
"Yeah" he said, still swaying, not really listening, already eagerly scanning the road ahead for other incoming Samaritans. "Yeah, ha, ha."
Later I ran into Dale Williams, who told me of his encounter with Princess Anne in Sandwell, and afterwards we spoke of the Ghost of West Midlands Past: "It was Henry Tilney." he said "All along."