"By James, this takes some getting used to!"

"How are things, Beresford?"

"My reputation has spread far and wide, my friend. Do you know what they call me now?"

"What?"

"The `Mad Marquess'! And do you know why?"

"Because you're a hopeless drunkard?"

Beresford laughed. "Well, partly. But mostly because I've been breaking through those social conventions which you claim so suppress us `Victorians.' In fact, Edward, I have it in mind to start a movement to demolish the whole edifice of mannered behaviour. You have convinced me that man is capable of far more once he's free."

"Ambitious! And what of the boy?"

"Ah, the esteemed Original! He's been at the Hat and Feathers since January. 'Mr. A. W. Smith' from the Ratcatcher has followed and the young lad is most flattered to learn that the aforesaid gentleman considers him the best potboy in all of London! Ha ha! I don't know, though, Edward; it's a small tavern and I haven't seen him making any particular friends there. For a while, I thought I'd found our quarry in one Lucy Scales, an eighteen-yearold. She can't be the one he marries in Australia, of course, but she's the right age to become that girl's mother."

"Why her?" asked Oxford, his eyes glinting with interest.

"Because in February she was attacked around the corner from the tavern and his reaction to it was extreme. I wasn't there at the time but apparently he flew into a fit of hysteria and had what amounted to a mental breakdown. He recovered a couple of weeks later and went back to work."

"So you think he might have a particular attachment to this girl?"

"It crossed my mind, but on closer examination I found that he'd never met her, or her parents, or anyone who had anything to do with her."

Oxford pondered this news for a few moments, then asked, "Anything else?"

"Yes-some cunning preparations on my part! The Original is obsessed with making a name for himself; he wants-and I quote-`to live on through history. "'

"What a fool I was to approach him in my time suit," interrupted Oxford. "It scared him out of his wits, what little he has of them. He picked up on my words and twisted them to bolster his delusions of grandeur."

"Those delusions are working in our favour now," offered Beresford. "I have initiated him into a secret society of my-or, rather, of A. W. Smith'sown invention. It's named `Young England' and has twenty-five members."

Oxford slapped his hand down on the arm of his chair. "Please tell me you're joking! You're getting twenty-five people involved?"

"Of course not! They're all entirely fictitious, just like the organisation itself! "

"So what's the point?"

"The point is this: Young England intends to overthrow the country's aristocracy-the likes of me!-and replace them with what you might call the `purebred worker.' I won't go into details, Edward, because it's all nonsense. I've been spinning words and sending the poor young fellow dizzy with it. But the upshot is that each member of the organisation must find for himself a wife who embodies all the best qualities of a working girl. She must be assiduous in her duties, virtuous and demure in manner, honest and loyal, and-well, the usual idiotic drivel.

"The Original is now on the lookout for such an impossible maiden. He's been primed to investigate the background of every girl he encounters. He will even hand to me a written report for each!"

Edward Oxford laughed; a brittle, edgy sound.

"You're a sly dog, my Lord Marquess, that's for sure! I must admit, though, I'm impressed with your resourcefulness."

"I'm happy to help. I'll leave you to work on your repairs now, but a little later, I insist that you'll sit and take wine with me. Agreed?"

"Agreed."

Oxford spent the evening with his host, slept, then, in the morning, jumped into the air and didn't come down until January 1, 1840.

"Six months to go before the queen gets it, and things are hotting up!" announced Beresford.

"Really?" rasped Oxford. His eyes seemed to be focused elsewhere. "Tell me."

"Our man is now working in the Hog in the Pound on Oxford Street. As his most faithful customer, A. W. Smith, I followed him there. My fellow drinkers don't realise that I'm the famed Mad Marquess!"

"You're famous now?"

"Yes, Edward; though I suppose `infamous' would be more accurate. I have quite a following of young bloods! Anyway, that's beside the point. As I was saying, the Original is now at the Hog in the Pound. The tavern is owned by a chap named Joseph Robinson, who lives in Battersea. Every week, he ships a group of families there from his borough for a knees-up. They call themselves the Battersea Brigade, and are supposedly a protest group opposed to the building of the power station."

"What power station?"

"The Battersea Power Station; one of Brunel's rather more controversial projects."

"That makes no sense at all," objected the time traveller. "Construction of the Battersea Power Station didn't begin until the 1920s-and it had nothing to do with Brunel!"

"Um. I may be to blame for that."

"What do you mean?"

"You've told me a great many things about the future, Edward, and I promised to keep my mouth shut. I'm afraid, however, that there was a night back in '37 when I was rather the worse for wear at the Athenaeum Club. The engineer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, was there-"

"I remember that night," put in Oxford.

"Well, I'm sorry to say that I blabbed rather," said Beresford. "I told Brunel about the way your people extract power from the ground. I even remembered the phrase you used to describe it: `geothermal energy.' He was absolutely besotted by the idea, and before the year was out, he'd proposed the Battersea Experimental Power Station."

"Damn you, Henry! It's bad enough that I'll return to a future without Victoria; now you've made it one where geothermal energy has existed three hundred years ahead of its time. Don't you realise the only thing that can prevent me from totally unravelling is to return to an environment which is at least in some way familiar?"

"I'm sorry. It was a slip."

"A bad one! But tell me about this protest group-why are they significant?"

"Because the moment the Original joined the staff, he and the Brigade hit it off like nobody's business! They love the little bugger!"

"You mean he finally has friends!"

"Yes! And seven of them have daughters, all the right age to qualify as the possible mother of the Original's wife. Any one of them could have the `Oxford birthmark' on her chest!"

"Not necessarily. It doesn't appear in every generation."

"But if it's there, finding it would be a distinct advantage; instead of having to follow all seven of the daughters until one of them gives birth to your ancestor, you'll just need to follow the one."

Oxford nodded slowly, chewed his lip, then became very still and expressionless. His face went slack.

"Edward?" prompted the marquess. "Are you still with me?"

"Yes," Oxford mumbled, blinking suddenly. "Get me times and places where I can find the girls. I want this over and done with. I'll see you in six months."

He left.

January, February, March, April, May, June passed.

July came.

Queen Victoria was shot dead.