Getting the chemist to a place of need would be somewhat tricky, but was by no means impossible. One way was to boost his business, but Vance wasn't certain that he could do that by himself. The other way that quickly came to Vance's mind was slightly less savory - a bit more Richard than Vance, truth be told - but was both simple and reasonably foolproof. Ben would also have to be completely in the dark about the whole thing, would which be hard now that they had spoken about it. Vance considered his options, and got to plotting. While he worked, he distracted himself with his more "mundane" operations, his school work, and his reading, but he kept coming back to his plan, and never found a better way to make it all work. Slowly the pieces came together for him, over the next few days.

The first thing that Vance did was ask the man for a job himself. Simple, clear, and absolutely guaranteed to fail. But it was an important step. It would put the idea into the chemist's head of having an apprentice, it would elevate Ben as being "not Vance" when the opportunity arose, and would allow Vance to tell Ben that he had tried and failed. In fact, Vance needed Ben to believe that when he got the job, that he had lucked into it despite Vance's best efforts. So when Vance was quickly rebuffed by the harried chemist, Vance put up just enough of a fight to be memorable, and then left.

He then told Ben about his "failure" and proceeded to offer to distract him by giving him some additional work to do while they came up with the next idea for how Ben could make a clean living. Basically, Vance explained, he just wanted Ben to watch over the evening crew that worked protection for the local merchants. Nothing untoward, no direct action, but Vance told Ben he wanted to make sure that they were doing the job and doing it well. He explained that he thought they might be slacking, so he'd need Ben to come out most evenings around dark and just check in; it would only be for the next few weeks until Vance could either verify that they were good, get them in line, or replace the crew. Ben agreed, and the first few nights went without incident.

About a week later, Vance had one of his lieutenants pay an urchin a few coppers to have an awkward trip-and-fall at the chemist's shop. Nothing serious by any means, but it upset a few shelves of material and caused some unnecessary work for the chemist, taking him away from his customers for longer than he would like when the boy ran out without making any attempt to clean up his mess or even apologize. Vance assumed that would make the man irritated and again remind him that if he had someone else to give this menial work to, he'd be in a better place - putting him in the right frame of mind for what came next.

That afternoon, as soon as closing time came, the chemist went to the pub as expected - he was still in a sour mood, and drank too much, just as Vance was hoping he would. Vance had gotten one of his pickpocket crews to agree to get a little rougher than normal; nothing too violent, but they would scare the man. He gave them the chemist's description, along with the instructions to grab him as he came out of the pub. He also let slip that the man might have more than just a wallet on him, but that some of the valuables might be hidden on his person somewhere other than a jacket pocket. That was all they needed to hear.

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When dusk came and the chemist was finally ejected for having too much, the pickpockets were ready. One of the boys shoved him to the ground, taking things too far as Vance knew an adrenaline-raged boy would, and even began to beat the man a little, demanding his valuables. The pickpocket job had turned into a pure mugging, and Vance hadn't even needed to ask for it explicitly, but it was exactly what he was hoping for. The chemist's leg was twisted a bit in the fall, and the boys began to kick at him as they shouted. Just then Ben came by, as part of his patrol of the protection crews, and saw the mugging in progress. Knowing that a mugging wasn't even on Vance's crews' agendas, he put a quick stop to it, getting the kids out of there and helping the injured chemist to his feet.

The man was unsteady, and looked at Ben with watery eyes, slurring his words as he thanked him profusely; he introduced himself to Ben as Chemist Levin (one could practically hear the way he capitalized his title as he spoke). As Ben's shock at the man's attack was completely genuine, there was no need for any deception; on top of that, he had never actually been in Levin's shop, and had no idea who the man was. So when Levin began to think about how he could work with such injuries, and as his inebriation loosened his inhibitions, Ben was amazed to hear the man describing his small shop, saying that he would clearly be in need of some help - was Ben interested in a position as an apprentice?

Good fortune aside, it was hard for Ben not to be suspicious of how it had all come together. Still, that night when he saw Vance and told him all that had happened, Vance quickly pointed out that he had tried and failed to get Ben a position and had simply moved on - he was too busy to waste time on dead-end endeavors, after all. He was happy for Ben, Vance insisted, and saw this as simply proof that it was the right idea all along, that some divine providence was guiding Ben to the position. Ben wasn't really one hundred percent convinced, but he also couldn't find any obvious holes in the story (and he was ecstatic at the opportunity), so he pushed away his doubts and began his preparations for his new job.

Even better, it would allow Ben to leave school a little earlier than planned, for those with apprenticeships could be considered "graduated" at any time, and Ben was not a fan of school. He was almost as excited at the prospect of leaving school as he was the bright future that awaited him. Ben "resigned" his position with Vance's operation (with Vance's blessing, of course), and ran home to tell his family all about his amazing turn of luck. Vance, meanwhile, was nearly as thrilled as Ben. Yes, he did have to have the chemist injured, but it was all in service of the goal, and anyway, Levin would eventually be fine. Everything had worked out perfectly, and the pieces were coming together.