Her name was Thyme, and when we met she was the owner of the Tea Shop you found me in. And she ran it quite well, too. Every last bit of wealth she could squeeze out of her customers, the Crown, even her employees she found a way to get her hands on. Anyway, I had set myself up not too far from the Tea Shop, and she came out to watch me. It made me a bit nervous at first, because when I say 'watch', I actually mean 'stare at without blinking for nearly an hour'. As it turned out, she noticed that I was a faster talker, and offered me a job as an understudy tea cozy.

Tea cozies were the people who were out on the floor, getting up close and personal with the customers, hence the turn of phrase. It was our job to convince them that they could afford just a little, at a higher rate. That they were getting something special. As far as I knew at the time, it was the truth. Every other bit of Wonderland I'd seen had crumbled to dust long ago, and I couldn't imagine that they'd been anything special to look at beforehand. I really thought Tea was the only thing that put the wonder in Wonderland. It didn't change anything really, but for a while there it didn't matter what sort of crappy sob story was passing as your life. You could be Happy or Hopeful or even Euphoric or Blissful. How could it be anything but wonderful?

Yeah, well, anyway, Tea cozying could be a taxing, hectic business, and just because someone was out sick with the plague or smallpox or something didn't mean a Tea Shop had to operate understaffed. Whenever anyone was out, whether it was for the day or even a few hours, Thyme would send for me and I would fill in for them. While no more secure than my normal job as a hustler, it paid several times as well. I could afford an apartment again, clothes that actually fit, a warm meal once and a while…

Yeah. Tea.

I took Self-Assurance. I figured, if nothing else, it would help with the job. Which I needed to get more Self-Assurance, which I needed for the job, which I needed for more-

What do you mean you've seen this anti-drug commercial? I'm being deadly, dastardly serious.

Well dastardly might not mean what I think it means on this side of the Looking Glass…

Speaking of dastardly- you're definition of it, anyway- it wasn't long before I found out that Thyme wasn't paying me what I would have earned for the same amount of work as a full-time cozy. It's not an unusual practice, understudies can be as unreliable at showing up to work as work can be for showing up for them- but what made this different was that she had no proper Tea cozies. According to her books, she had a full-time staff of eight, but every single person who actually worked there was an understudy like me, getting underpaid for their services, with Thyme pocketing the difference in wages. She could be reasonably certain that no one would notice it: they would either be too steeped in Tea, or too busy trading it to keep track of who was working at which time. I was hoping to find some way of angling into a full time position, so I suppose I paid better attention than most.

It was a pretty smooth operation. I spent a fair amount of time appreciating it, before I tried to figure out how to use that bit of information to my advantage. I couldn't just go and demand a better job in exchange for my silence, because it's not like my word would have meant anything to a Suit, and she knew it, and then I'd be out of even the understudy position. Thankfully, before I had to think about it too hard- because, well, Tea addles your brain, messes with your body's natural chemistry, supports a corrupt regime, you get the picture- an opportunity to advance presented itself to me.

His name was Harold March.

A/N: Thanks to Sony Boy for spotting my error in the last chapter. Sorry, my bad!