APTHORP:It couldn’t be-Dr. Daniel Waterhouse!
WATERHOUSE:Well met, Sir Richard!
APTHORP:Sitting in a chair, no less!
WATERHOUSE:The day is long, Sir Richard, my legs are tired.
APTHORP:It helps if you keep moving-which is the whole point of the ‘Change, by the by. This is the Temple of Mercury-not of Saturn!
WATERHOUSE:Did you think I was being Saturnine? Saturn is Cronos, the God of Time. For your truly Saturnine character you had better look to Mr. Hooke, world’s foremost clockmaker…
DUTCHMAN:Sir! Our Mr. Huygens taught your Mr. Hooke everything he knows!
WATERHOUSE:Different countries revere the same gods under different names. The Greeks had Cronos, the Romans Saturn. The Dutch have Huygens and we have Hooke.
APTHORP:If you are not Saturn, what are you, then, to bide in a chair, so gloomy and pensive, in the middle of the ‘Change?
WATERHOUSE:I am he who was born to be his family’s designated participant in the Apocalypse; who was named after the strangest book in the Bible; who rode Pestilence out of London and Fire into it. I escorted Drake Waterhouse and King Charles from this world, and I put Cromwell’s head back into its grave with these two hands.
APTHORP:My word! Sir!
WATERHOUSE:Of late I have been observed lurking round Whitehall, dressed in black, affrighting the courtiers.
APTHORP:What brings Lord Pluto to the Temple of Mercury?
JEW:By’re leave, by’re leave, Senor-pray-where stands the tablero?
APTHORP:He sees that you have a Chair, and hopes you know where is the Table.
WATERHOUSE:That would be mesa. Perhaps he means banca, desk…
APTHORP:Every other man in this ‘Change, who is seated upon a chair, is in front of such a banca. He wants to know where yours has got to!
WATERHOUSE:I meant that perhaps he is looking for the bank.
APTHORP:You mean, me?
WATERHOUSE:That is the new title you have given your goldsmith’s shop now, is it not? A bank?
APTHORP:Why, yes; but why doesn’t he just ask for me then?
WATERHOUSE:Senor! A moment, I beg you!
JEW:Like this, like this!
APTHORP:What is he holding up there, I do not have my spectacles.
WATERHOUSE:He has drawn what a Natural Philosopher would identify as a Cartesian coordinate plane, and what you would style a ledger, and scrawled words in one column, and numerals in the next.
APTHORP: Tablero-he means the board where the prices of something are billed. Commodities, most likely.
JEW:Commodities, yes!
WATERHOUSE:‘Sblood, it’s right over there in the corner, is the man blind?
APTHORP:Rabbi, do not take offense at my friend’s irritable tone, for he is the Lord of the Underworld, and known for his moods. Here in Mercury’s temple all is movement, flux-which is why we name it the ‘Change. Knowledge and intelligence flow like the running waters spoken of in the Psalms. But you have made the mistake of asking Pluto, the God of Secrets. Why is Pluto here? ’Tis something of a mystery-I myself was startled to see him just now, and supposed I was looking at a ghost.
WATERHOUSE:The tablero is over yonder.
JEW:That is all!?
APTHORP:You have come from Amsterdam?
JEW:Yes.
APTHORP:How many commodities are billed on the tablero in Amsterdam now?
JEW:This number…
APTHORP:Daniel, what has he written there?
WATERHOUSE:Five hundred and fifty.
APTHORP:God save England, the Dutchmen have a tablero with near six hundred commodities, and we’ve a plank with a few dozen.
WATERHOUSE:No wonder he did not recognize it.
Apthorp (to Minion):Follow that Kohan and learn what he is on about-he knows something.
WATERHOUSE:Now who is the God of Secrets?
APTHORP:You are, for you still have not told me why you are here.
WATERHOUSE:As Lord of the Underworld, I customarily sit enthroned in the Well of Souls, where departed spirits whirl about me like so many dry leaves. Arising this morning at my lodgings in Gresham’s College and strolling down Bishopsgate, I chanced to look in ‘tween the columns of the ‘Change here. It was deserted. But a wind-vortex was picking up all the little scraps of paper dropped by traders yesterday and making ’em orbit round past all of the bancas like so many dry leaves… I became confused, thinking I had reached Hell, and took my accustomed seat.
APTHORP:Your discourse is annoying.
RAVENSCAR:“The hypothesis of vortices is pressed with many difficulties!”
WATERHOUSE:God save the King, m’lord.
APTHORP:God save the King-and damn all riddlers-m’lord.
WATERHOUSE:‘Twere redundant to damn Pluto.
RAVENSCAR:He’s damning me, Daniel, for prating about vortices.
APTHORP:The mystery is resolved. For now I perceive that the two of you have arranged to meet here. And since you are speaking of vortices, m’lord, I ween it has to do with Natural Philosophy.
RAVENSCAR:I beg leave to disagree, Sir Richard. For ’twas this fellow in the chair who chose the place of our meeting. Normally we meet in the Golden Grasshopper.
APTHORP:So the mystery endures. Why the ‘Change today, then, Daniel?
WATERHOUSE:You will see soon enough.
RAVENSCAR:Perhaps it is because we are going to exchange some documents. Voila!
APTHORP:What is that you have whipped out of your pocket m’lord, I do not have my spectacles.
RAVENSCAR:The latest from Hanover. Dr. Leibniz has favored you, Daniel, with a personalized and autographed copy of the latest Acta Eruditorum. Lots of mathematickal incantations are in here, chopped up with great stretched-out S marks-extraordinary!
WATERHOUSE:Then the Doctor has finally dropped the other shoe, for that could only be the Integral Calculus.
RAVENSCAR:Too, some letters addressed to you personally, Daniel, which means they’ve only been read by a few dozen people so far.
WATERHOUSE:By your leave.
APTHORP:Good heavens, m’lord, if Mr. Waterhouse had snatched ’em any quicker they’d’ve caught fire. One who dwells in the Underworld ought to be more cautious when handling Inflammable Objects.
WATERHOUSE:Here, m’lord, fresh from Cambridge, as promised, I give you Books I and II of Principia Mathematica by Isaac Newton-have a care, some would consider it a valuable document.
APTHORP:My word, is that the cornerstone of a building, or a manuscript?
RAVENSCAR:Err! To judge by weight, it is the former.
APTHORP:Whatever it is, it is too long, too long!
WATERHOUSE:It explains the System of the World.
APTHORP:Some sharp editor needs to step in and take that wretch in hand!
RAVENSCAR:Will you just look at all of these damned illustrations… do you realize what this will cost, for all of the woodcuts?