“Ah-he’s squeamish-abhors cruelty?”

“Cruelty to animals. ”

“Some Fellows have proposed that we borrow residents of…” said the Bishop, nodding towards Bedlam.

“Isaac might be more comfortable with that,” Daniel admitted.

A barmaid had been hovering, and now stepped into the awkward silence: “Mr. Hooke requests your presence.”

“Thank God,” Wilkins said to her, “I was afraid you were going to complain he had committed an offense against your person.”

The patrons of the Dogg were backed up against the walls in the configuration normally used for watching bar-fights, viz. forming an empty circle around Mr. Hooke’s table, which was (as shown by the bubble instrument) now perfectly level. It was also clean, and empty except for a glob of quicksilver in the middle, with numerous pinhead-sized droplets scattered about in novel constellations. Mr. Hooke was peering at the large glob-a perfect, regular dome-through an optical device of his own manufacture. Glancing up, he twiddled a hog-bristle between thumb and index finger, pushing an invisibly tiny droplet of mercury across the table until it merged with the large one. Then more peering. Then, moving with the stealth of a cat-burglar, he backed away from the table. When he had put a good fathom between himself and the experiment, he looked up at Wilkins and said, “Universal Measure!”

“What!? Sir! You don’t say!”

“You will agree,” Hooke said, “that level is an absolute concept-any sentient person can make a surface level.”

“It is in the Philosophical Language,” said Bishop Wilkins-this signified yes.

Pepys came in the door, looking splendid, and had his mouth open to demand beer, when he realized a solemn ceremony was underway.

“Likewise mercury is the same in all places-in all worlds.”

“Agreed.”

“As is the number two.”

“Of course.”

“Here I have created a flat, clean, smooth, level surface. On it I have placed a drop of mercury and adjusted it so that the diameter is exactly two times its height. Anyone, anywhere could repeat these steps-the result would be a drop of mercury exactly the same size as this one. The diameter of the drop, then, can be used as the common unit of measurement for the Philosophical Language!”

The sound of men thinking.

Pepys: “Then you could build a container that was a certain number of those units high, wide, and deep; fill it with water; and have a standard measure of weight.”

“Just so, Mr. Pepys.”

“From length and weight you could make a standard pendulum-the time of its alternations would provide a universal unit of time!”

“But water beads up differently on different surfaces,” said the Bishop of Chester. “I assume the same sorts of variations occur with mercury.”

Hooke, resentful: “The surface to be used could be stipulated: copper, or glass…”

“If the force of gravity varies with altitude, how would that affect the height of the drop?” asked Daniel Waterhouse.

“Do it at sea-level,” said Hooke, with a dollop of spleen.

“Sea-level varies with the tides,” Pepys pointed out.

“What of other planets?” Wilkins demanded thunderously.

“Other planets!? We haven’t finished with this one!”

“As our compatriot Mr. Oldenburg has said: ‘You will please to remember that we have taken to task the whole Universe, and that we were obliged to do so by the nature of our Design!’ “

Hooke, very stormy-looking now, scraped most of the quicksilver into a funnel, and thence into a flask; departed; and was sighted by Mr. Pepys (peering through the Newtonian reflector) no more than a minute later, stalking off towards Hounsditch in the company of a whore. “He’s flown into one of his Fits of Melancholy-we won’t see him for two weeks now-then we’ll have to reprimand him,” Wilkins grumbled.

Almost as if it were written down somewhere in the Universal Character, Pepys and Wilkins and Waterhouse somehow knew that they had unfinished business together-that they ought to be having a discreet chat about Mr. Oldenburg. A triangular commerce in highly significant glances and eyebrow-raisings flourished there in the Dogg, for the next hour, among them. But they could not all break free at once: Churchill and others wanted more details from Daniel about this Mr. Newton and his telescope. The Duke of Gunfleet got Pepys cornered, and interrogated him about dark matters concerning the Navy’s finances. Blood-spattered, dejected Royal Society members stumbled in from Gresham’s College, with the news that Drs. King and Belle had gotten lost in the wilderness of canine anatomy, the dog had died, and they really needed Hooke-where was he? Then they cornered Bishop Wilkins and talked Royal Society politics-would Comstock stand for election to President again? Would Anglesey arrange to have himself nominated?

BUT LATER-too late for Daniel, who had risen early, when Isaac had-the three of them were together in Pepys’s coach, going somewhere.

“I note my Lord Gunfleet has taken up a sudden interest in Naval -gazing,” said Wilkins.

“As our safety from the Dutch depends upon our Navy,” Pepys said carefully, “and most of our Navy is arrayed before the Casbah in Algiers, many Persons of Quality share Anglesey’s curiosity.”

Wilkins only looked amused. “I did not hear him asking you of frigates and cannons,” he said, “but of Bills of Exchange, and pay-coupons.”

Pepys cleared his throat at length, and glanced nervously at Daniel. “Those who are responsible for draining the Navy’s coffers, must answer to those who are responsible for filling them,” he finally said.

Even Daniel, a dull Cambridge scholar, had the wit to know that the coffer-drainer being referred to here was the armaments-maker John Comstock, Earl of Epsom-and that the coffer-filler was Thomas More Anglesey, Duke of Gunfleet, and father of Louis Anglesey, the Earl of Upnor.

“Thus C and A,” Wilkins said. “What does the Cabal’s second syllable have to say of Naval matters?”

“No surprises from Bolstrood*of course.”

“Some say Bolstrood wants our Navy in Africa, so that the Dutch can invade us, and make of us a Calvinist nation.”

“Given that the V.O.C.*is paying out dividends of forty percent, I think that there are many new Calvinists on Threadneedle Street.”

“Is Apthorp one of them?”

“Those rumors are nonsense-Apthorp would rather build his East India Company, than invest in the Dutch one.”

“So it follows that Apthorp wants a strong Navy, to protect our merchant ships from those Dutch East Indiamen, so topheavy with cannons.”

“Yes.”

“What of General Lewis?”

“Let’s ask the young scholar,” Pepys said mischievously.

Daniel was dumbstruck for a few moments-to the gurgling, boyish amusement of Pepys and Wilkins.

The telescope seemed to be watching Daniel, too: it sat in its box across from him, a disembodied sensory organ belonging to Isaac Newton, staring at him with more than human acuteness. He heard Isaac demanding to know what on earth he, Daniel Waterhouse, could possibly be doing, riding across London in Samuel Pepys’s coach-pretending to be a man of affairs!

“Err… a weak Navy forces us to keep a strong Army, to fight off any Dutch invasions,” Daniel said, thinking aloud.

“But with a strong Navy, we can invade the Hollanders!” Wilkins protested. “More glory for General Lewis, Duke of Tweed!”

“Not without French help,” Daniel said, after a few moments’ consideration, “and my lord Tweed is too much the Presbyterian.”

“Is this the same good Presbyterian who enjoyed a secret earldom at the exile court at St. Germaines, when Cromwell ruled the land?”

“He is a Royalist, that’s all,” Daniel demurred.