Tobias oft told how the fairies stole his nose one night when he was sleeping off the booze under an arch of Welshman's Bridge. But I'd heard that it was syphilis that left him with that hole in his face. Plenty of coves strut around Gay Meadow sporting saddle noses, looking for the world like pugilists or bare knuckle fighters. Tobias just looked a mess. You didn't want to be near him when he sneezed.
He should go to Grindley, the blacksmith, I said, and take with him some old spoons that could be beaten fine and drawn out into a metal nose. Tobias complained that the whore son blacksmith was a Ranter and was likely to quote the Bible at him before kicking him out the door.
I felt sorry for him. Or at least I was sick of beholding that face or being in range of his purulent breath. Besides, I thought he might slip me a few coppers if I did him a good turn. I proposed to make a new nose for him out of wax if he could come by some candles.
The candle was a big expensive-looking one, much better than those tallow candles. I didn't ask where he got it from.
Not trusting Tobias to hold still, what with him looking like a fighter and all, I ordered him up to his bedchamber where I tied him to his cot with a length of rope. That done, I wound a length of linen tight under his chin to keep his head still. He wriggled and kicked when I stuck two straws where his nose should be but as I said, if he wanted to breathe through his new nose he'd have to trust me. I lit the candle and dripped wax into the hole in his face, taking no mind of his muffled oaths, stopping every once in a while to make sure the straws were keeping him breathing. Soon there was a large carbuncle of wax where his new nose would be. I took a hot knife and cut and smoothed the wax until Tobias sported such a nose as might have adorned the face of a Roman Emperor.
When I untied him and showed him his reflection in a mirror he seemed well pleased with the result, apart from the two straws sticking out of his face. These I trimmed with a paring knife. Then we were ready to go out to hit the taverns.
We had a fine evening at The Anchor with many a doxie eager to take the arm of the tall handsome man with the Roman nose.
Things went well until Tobias decided to smoke a pipe. The clay pipe he pulled from his waistcoat had a stem clipped so short it barely poked beyond the end of his new nose. He was well oiled by that time and in no mood to listen to advice.
Likely it was the heat of the pipe that loosened his nose, and the sneeze when it came didn't help. The nose shot off his face and arced across the smoky tavern towards the fire grate. A mangy Turn Spit dog was nosing around the sawdust for food scraps. Quick as a flash it jumped up, caught the nose and gulped it down.
Tobias chased the dog out the door roaring with outrage and accompanied by hoots and catcalls from all around.
I finished my ale, and his, and slipped quietly off home.
No one knows what befell Tobias. He was never seen again. But sometimes in the day's gloaming, or in the half light of a Winter sunrise when river mist cloaks the bridge, a hunched figure emerges from the bridge's shadow, picks its way along the foreshore, combs the river's edge, examines and discards small objects.
Perhaps it is the shade of Tobias, searching for a nose.
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