Some simple deals struck with the caste of night-soil-collectors and chamber-pot-emptiers caused jugs, barrels, and hogsheads of piss to come trundling into van Hoek’s brewery-compound every morning. By and large these had been covered, to keep the stink down, but Jack insisted that the lids be taken off and the piss be allowed to stand open under the sun. Complaints from the neighbors—consisting largely of religious orders—had not been long in coming. And it was then that Mr. Foot had come into his own; for he’d been at work with needle and thread, converting his black Puritan get-up into a sort of Wizard’s robe. His line of patter consisted half of Alchemy—which Jack had dictated—and half of Popery, which Padraig Tallow could and did rattle off in his sleep.