“A gentleman traveler from abroad joins us. Welcome, sir, to our humble Colony!”
Enoch goes through the requisite polite movements and utterances. They show a great deal of interest in him, a sure sign that not much new and interesting is going on at Harvard College. But the place is only some three-quarters of a century old, so how much can really be happening there? They want to know if he’s from a Germanic land; he says not really. They guess that he has come on some Alchemical errand, which is an excellent guess, but wrong. When it is polite to do so, he tells them the name of the man he has come to see.
He’s never heard such scoffing. They are, to a man, pained that a gentleman should’ve crossed the North Atlantic, and now the Charles Basin, only to spoil the journey by meeting with that fellow.
“I know him not,” Enoch lies.
“Then let us prepare you, sir!” one of them says. “Daniel Waterhouse is a man advanced in years, but the years have been less kind to him than you.”
“He is correctly addressed as Dr. Waterhouse, is he not?”
Silence ruined by stifled gurgles.
“I do not presume to correct any man,” Enoch says, “only to be sure that I give no offense when I encounter the fellow in person.”
“Indeed, he is accounted a Doctor,” says the pear-shaped Don, “but-”
“Of what?” someone asks.
“Gears,” someone suggests, to great hilarity.
“Nay, nay!” says the Don, shouting them down, in a show of false goodwill. “For all of his gears are to no purpose without a primum mobile, a source of motive power-”
“The Franklin boy!” and all turn to look at Ben.
“Today it might be young Ben, tomorrow perhaps little Godfrey Waterhouse will step into Ben’s shoes. Later perhaps a rodent on a tread-mill. But in any case, the vis viva is conducted into Dr. Waterhouse’s gear-boxes by-what? Anyone?” The Don cups a hand to an ear Socratically.
“Shafts?” someone guesses.
“Cranks!” another shouts.
“Ah, excellent! Our colleague Waterhouse is, then, a Doctor of-what?”
“Cranks!” says the entire College in unison.
“And so devoted is our Doctor of Cranks to his work that he quite sacrifices himself,” says the Don admiringly. “Going many days uncovered-”
“Shaking the gear-filings from his sleeves when he sits down to break bread-”
“Better than pepper-”
“And cheafer!”
“Are you, perhaps, coming to join his Institute, then?”
“Or foreclose on’t?” Too hilarious.
“I have heard of his Institute, but know little of it,” Enoch Root says. He looks over at Ben, who has gone red in the neck and ears, and turned his back on all to nuzzle the horse.
“Many learned scholars are in the same state of ignorance-be not ashamed.”
“Since he came to America, Dr. Waterhouse has been infected with the local influenza, whose chief symptom is causing men to found new projects and endeavours, rather than going to the trouble of remedying the old ones.”
“He’s not entirely satisfied with Harvard College then!?” Enoch says wonderingly.
“Oh, no! He has founded-”
“-and personally endowed -”
“-and laid the cornerstone-”
“-corner-log, if truth be told-”
“-of-what does he call it?”
“The Massachusetts Bay Colony Institute of Technologickal Arts.”
“Where might I find Dr. Waterhouse’s Institute?” Enoch inquires.
“Midway from Charlestown to Harvard. Follow the sound of grinding gears ‘til you come to America’s smallest and smokiest dwelling-”
“Sir, you are a learned and clear-minded gentleman,” says the Don. “If your errand has aught to do with Philosophy, then is not Harvard College a more fitting destination?”
“Mr. Root is a Natural Philosopher of note, sir!” blurts Ben, only as a way to prevent himself bursting into tears. The way he says it makes it clear he thinks the Harvard men are of the Unnatural type. “He is a Fellow of the Royal Society!”
Oh, dear.
The Don steps forward and hunches his shoulders like a conspirator. “I beg your pardon, sir, I did not know.”
“It is quite all right, really.”
“Dr. Waterhouse, you must be warned, has fallen quite under the spell of Herr Leibniz-”
“-him that stole the calculus from Sir Isaac-” someone footnotes.
“-yes, and, like Leibniz, is infected with Metaphysickal thinking-”
“-a throwback to the Scholastics, sir-notwithstanding Sir Isaac’s having exploded the old ways through very clear demonstrations-”
“-and labors now, like a possessed man, on a Mill-designed after Leibniz’s principles-that he imagines will discover new truths through computation!”
“Perhaps our visitor has come to exorcise him of Leibniz’s daemons!” some very drunk fellow hypothesizes.
Enoch clears his throat irritably, hacking loose a small accumulation of yellow bile-the humour of anger and ill-temper. He says, “It does Dr. Leibniz an injustice to call him a mere metaphysician.”
This challenge produces momentary silence, followed by tremendous excitement and gaiety. The Don smiles thinly and squares off. “I know of a small tavern on Harvard Square, a suitable venue in which I could disabuse the gentleman of any misconceptions-”
The offer to sit down in front of a crock of beer and edify these wags is dangerously tempting. But the Charlestown waterfront is drawing near, the slaves already shortening their strokes; Minerva is fairly straining at her hawsers in eagerness to catch the tide, and he must have results. He’d rather get this done discreetly. But that is hopeless now that Ben has unmasked him. More important is to get it done quickly.
Besides, Enoch has lost his temper.
He draws a folded and sealed Letter from his breast pocket and, for lack of a better term, brandishes it.
The Letter is borrowed, scrutinized-one side is inscribed “Doktor Waterhouse-Newtowne-Massachusetts”-and flipped over. Monocles are quarried from velvet-lined pockets for the Examination of the Seaclass="underline" a lump of red wax the size of Ben’s fist. Lips move and strange mutterings occur as parched throats attempt German.
All of the Professors seem to realize it at once. They jump back as if the letter were a specimen of white phosphorus that had suddenly burst into flame. The Don is left holding it. He extends it towards Enoch the Red with a certain desperate pleading look. Enoch punishes him by being slow to accept the burden.
“Bitte, mein herr…”
“English is perfectly sufficient,” Enoch says. “Preferable, in fact.”
At the fringes of the robed and hooded mob, certain nearsighted faculty members are frantic with indignation over not having been able to read the seal. Their colleagues are muttering to them words like “Hanover” and “Ansbach.”
A man removes his hat and bows to Enoch. Then another.
They have not even set foot in Charlestown before the dons have begun to make a commotion. Porters and would-be passengers stare quizzically at the approaching ferry as they are assailed with shouts of “Make way!” and broad waving motions. The ferry’s become a floating stage packed with bad actors. Enoch wonders whether any of these men really supposes that word of their diligence will actually make its way back to court in Hanover, and be heard by their future Queen. It is ghoulish-they are behaving as if Queen Anne were already dead and buried, and the Hanovers on the throne.
“Sir, if you’d only told me ’twas Daniel Waterhouse you sought, I’d have taken you to him without delay-and without all of this bother. ”