“Of the Wine-Clubb and the Beer-Clubb, which is the loudest?”

“Loudest? Wine-Clubb, loud early, quiet late. Beer-Clubb, other way round, know-what-I-mean.”

“Do the soldiers ever partake?” asked Daniel, nodding at the tents.

“Ooh, every so often a pair of ’em’ll nip round for a pint,” she said, “but it’s been dicey, ’tween us ’n’ them, know-what-I-mean-”

“Because of the Steward’s legal proceedings.”

“Yeah. Yeah. That’s it.”

“How can they sleep, in those tents, with all of the noise from the tap-room nearby?”

“They can’t. But sleep’s always a problem in the Fleet,” she said, “for them as have ambitions of sleepin’, know-what-I-mean.”

“I know precisely what you mean, madame,” said Daniel, sliding a final coin. “Do take this and buy some cotton to stuff in your ears.”

“Thank you ever so kindly, sir,” she said, backing away. “Hope to see you on Monday or Thursday evening, as you prefer.”

“IF THIS GETS ANY EASIER,” said Daniel to Saturn, “I shall feel a bit let down.”

“It doesn’t look easy to me! Have you seen the locks on that dungeon?”

“It shall be as easy as throwing a party,” Daniel returned. “Now, come-let’s go out-supposing that the turnkeys will let us!-and look for real estate on Fleet Lane.”

Saturn looked gloomier than usual.

“What, the idea doesn’t please you?”

“It is no more displeasing than any of your other recent notions,” said Peter Hoxton, Esq.

“Is that your idea of diplomacy?”

“It is the best I can muster just now. You should not have looked in Hockley-in-the-Hole, if you sought a diplomat.”

“Then as long as we are being blunt,” said Daniel, “this is as good a time as any for me to inform you that I know you made the Infernal Devices for Jack.”

“Was wondering,” said Peter Hoxton, motionless and red.

“I had suspected, but it became more than obvious in July, when you crafted that excellent snare that caught de Gex.”

Peter Hoxton commenced inhaling now, and, over the next quarter-minute or so, drew into his lungs a few hogsheads of air, and grew and grew until it seemed his ribcage was going to press up against the building to one side and the wall to the other, and begin cracking the masonry. But finally he reached his limit, and let all of the air out in a whistling hurricanoe.

“Was wondering,” he repeated, as if he’d only been trying the phrase on for size, the first time he’d said it. “Have been on tenterhooks, a bit.”

“I know you have.”

“I am gratified” said Saturn, cherishing this word, “gratified that you did not simply prosecute me.”

“No one was killed,” Daniel pointed out. “The explosions did not continue.”

“One of the reasons I sought you out in the first place, you know, was that…”

“You wanted to keep an eye on me, and my investigation.”

“Oh, to be sure, but also because…”

“You felt bad that you’d had a hand in Blowing me Up.”

“Yes-exactly! It’s as if you read my mind.”

“I read your face, your manner, which is what a Father Confessor is supposed to do. What do you know concerning the Pyx?”

“I opened it. Jack took some things out, placed others in.”

“What did Jack put in? Was it fine gold? Or allayed with base metal?”

Saturn shrugged. “I sometimes purchase gold to make watches,” he said, “but that is all I know of gold.”

After this Daniel was silent for such a long time that Saturn progressed through diverse stages of irritability, nervousness, and melancholy. He looked up and regarded the Fleet Prison. “Would you like me to go yonder and pick out a cell, then, or-”

“Wrong place for Infernal Device makers. You would find the company of debtors tedious. You would fall to drinking.” Daniel pushed himself to his feet and drained his coffee, which had been tepid when served and was cold now. “Now, about that real estate,” said Daniel. “My life began getting really complicated round the time the King of England blew up my house, and killed my dad; now I may have to blow up another house to make things simple again; if so, I’ll need a man of your skills.”

Saturn finally stood up. “That, at least, is more interesting than what we have been doing, and so I shall join you.”

of a PUBLICK AUCTION

to be conducted in the LIBERTY of the CLINK

[that is, on the 20th October A.D. 1714]

Item for sale: MR. CHARLES WHITE, ESQ.

’Tis well enough known, alike to the Nobility and the Mobility, that when the Earl of O-[known in some Clubbs by the sobriquet, Last of the Tories] was presented to the King of England at Greenwich, and crept up to kiss the King his hand, his majesty only glared at the poor Supplicant, then turned the royal Backside without suffering a Word to spill from his lips. Whereupon the blushing Earl fled in almost as profound Disgrace as his fellow Tory, my lord B-, who was last seen on the packet to Calais practicing his genuflections to any French gentleman who strolled near enough.

From these and diverse other Auspices we may see that Torydom is bank-rupt. It is an ancient Tradition that when the final Scion of a noble House breathes his last, an Executor-by tradition, a respected Gentleman of the town-disposes of the surviving Effects, viz. livestock, wine-bottles, furnishings, carriages, amp;c.-by the expedient of a publick Auction. And indeed ’tis a very beneficial and ennobling practice; for many a Viscount, amp;c., of recent Coinage, whose grandpere was a cobbler or a smuggler, would otherwise be unable to stuff his town-house with family heirlooms dating back to the Norman Conquest.

So dismal and thorough-going has been the Tories’ fall, that there is little left to sell off to the triumphant Whigs, and to my knowledge no good man has yet stepped forward to proffer his service as Executor [many would gladly nominate themselves for the role of Executioner; but that position is spoken for by one Jack Ketch, and he is said to be passing jealous of it, and a dangerous man to get on the wrong side of, as he has slain many].

Having as I do much time on my hands [for I can only spend so many hours per diem counting my readers’ generous Contributions] and enjoying to no small degree the respect of the Duke of M-and other august figures [as how else could it be explained that the Whigs now print my scribblings in their Paper], I have lately stepped forward to appoint myself Executor of the wretched leavings that answer to the name of the Tories’ Estate. I approached this responsibility with aweful Trepidation, supposing I should have to toil for years at selling off the Tories’ abandoned Assets: mountains of debas’d paper Currency, acres of country-house-lawns, a warehouse of ill will, and diverse odds and ends such as French-English phrasebooks and Papist regalia. To my considerable relief, however, I have found that even these feeble assets are gone, dissolved, liquidated, and so my task is infinitely simpler than I had supposed. For the Tories have only one thing remaining, and that is Mr. Charles White, who professes to be my owner. Mr. White’s vocal and oft-repeated support for Slavery [a primitive and savage custom whereby one soul may own another] has simplified what would otherwise have been a most awkward matter. For thanks to the generosity of my readers I am sanguine that I have coin sufficient to purchase Mr. White at auction, which will be conducted immediately following the new King’s coronation on the 20th instant. Owning Mr. White, who asserts a claim to ownership of me shall mean, infallibly, that I shall then be the owner of myself again; which is all that I really seek. I shall then eliminate the middle-man, as ’twere, by confiscating all of Mr. White’s assets, including myself. Mr. White I shall set free, naked as the day he was born, so that he can hie to France and mug some Fopp for his clothes; though I may prevail on him first to shine my boots-which, being such a notorious Black-guard, he is well capable of doing.