The System of the World

The Kit-Cat Clubb
AN HOUR LATER

ISAAC NEWTON MUST THINK every room silent, for every room went silent when he walked into it. Even this one!

Daniel had recovered from the strange absence of mind that had troubled him during the Queen’s address to Parliament. He was fully engaged in the moment. It must have had something to do with that here he could drink chocolate. Moreover, he could move about, talk to people, and attend to what he found interesting. Until Isaac hushed the place by walking in, this had been the spectacle of Roger-holding court at his favorite table-receiving the thanks, in the form of bad poetry, and the congratulations, in the form of expensive gifts, of Great Britain, one Briton at a time. Because this was the Kit-Cat Clubb, all of these encomia had to be delivered in verse: pithy epigrams if Roger were lucky, rambling trains of heroic couplets otherwise. One of the formal constraints observed in the Kit-Cat school of doggerel was that no one could be referred to by name. Classical allusions were de rigueur. Roger was almost always Vulcan.

Thus some viscount or other:

Vulcan * in his smoaky Forge † did smite

of Gold bright Bolts ‡ to fortify his Better §

And, lest the Captives of the Gods take Flight,

Titanic manacles and Olympian Fetters.

Prometheus ** who unwisely played with Fire

Is bolted to a crag now all Alone

When Juno †† did incite young Vulcan’s ire

His clever hand’work chained her to her Throne ‡‡

This particular Viscount, as everyone understood, could never have crafted such lines himself. He was accompanied by one of the young poets who loitered about the Clubb tossing off epigrams in exchange for pies and wine. Sir Isaac Newton broke in upon the touching exchange and began speaking to Roger. He had not gotten out of bed for a fortnight after his bludgeoning in Star Chamber, but he was now walking about as spry as a twenty-year-old scholar gamboling on the banks of the Cam. He was completely unaware that he was jumping to the head of a snaking and redoubling queue of men who out-ranked him. Daniel had made slower head-way through the revelers because, unlike Isaac, he bothered to excuse himself as he went. So he could not hear Isaac’s words at first. But he knew that Isaac must have been drawn hither by the news, and that he must be congratulating Roger on having so backed Bolingbroke into a corner that he had been forced to call for Mummy to come and rescue him. Substantial men, one after another, had been saying as much to Roger for hours now, and he had been receiving each plaudit with a nod so perfunctory it had dwindled to a vestigial tic. And yet when Isaac Newton said much the same sort of thing to him, Ravenscar took it with (if a play on words could be permitted) the utmost gravity. As if other men went about congratulating people almost at random, but Newton really meant it. Perhaps it helped that he was speaking in prose.

Daniel had thought that Roger seemed a bit distracted, even melancholy, as he’d sat there receiving the adulatory versifications of Whigdom. And Daniel thought he knew why. Roger loved the counterattack. He’d spent the last month readying one, but now it was spent. He was in the position of a pistol-duellist who has discharged his weapon, and now stands defenseless, not knowing whether the foe is wounded mortally; merely dazed; or relishing the power to blow his brains out. He needed to be readying himself for Bolingbroke’s riposte; instead he had to sit here and listen to bad poetry.

Roger took Isaac companionably by the arm and led him toward Daniel. By way of excusing himself he shouted: “Gentlemen-a moment, if you please-I have heard that the Queen to-day hath given the Royal Assent to the posting of a reward for him who finds out the Longitude!” He was feigning amazement at this turn of events. “And it is rumored that Sir Isaac knows something about it.

“If you would hope to find the Longitude,

“Find Newton first-and give him Food!”

Roger improvised, to light applause and heavy drinking. “Mr. Cat! If you would! Mutton-pies, please.”

But by the time Daniel effected his rendezvous with Roger and Isaac, they had moved on to altogether different topics. “You are looking in the pink-splendid!-does this mean I shall get Catherine back? My household has gone to ruin since its Mistress went off to nurse her nuncle.”

“Indeed, my lord, she has already gone back to resume her duties,” Newton returned, bored, and a bit uneasy, with this subject.

“The house will be glowing in a few days, if she tends to it as well as she has to you.”

“She has done well by her uncle,” Newton allowed, “but in truth, the recent news from Westminster, and the prospect that Bolingbroke would be baffled, and a Trial of the Pyx put off indefinitely, were the physic that cured me.”

“Then do you and Dr. Waterhouse carpe diem and place your new-found vigor in service of some well-wrought plan of attack,” Roger suggested, “for Parliament is only prorogued until the tenth of August, and that is more than enough time for such as Bolingbroke to dig a counter-counter-mine, and blow us all up to the sky.”

“Dr. Waterhouse and I are accustomed to people attempting to blow us up,” Newton returned. It was hard to make out whether this was a dry witticism or a clinical observation. Isaac startled Daniel, now, by looking him dead in the eye. “It is good that you are here. I wish to speak to you.”

“Then with your indulgence I shall withdraw,” Roger said, “that the two of you may speak. Please, speak of weighty matters, and keep your discourse to the matter at hand-for there is no more potent weapon for the Jacobites than to make the City, the Country, and the Mobb believe that the Whigs-and by extension the Hanovers-have secretly debased the coinage to make themselves rich!”

This was an awfully blunt thing to say to the Master of the Mint. Newton was shocked, which had probably been Roger’s intention. Roger hovered just long enough to be certain that Newton was not going to collapse twitching on the floor. But instead Newton just glared at him. Daniel caught Roger’s eye and threw him a wink. For Daniel had seen Isaac in this mood many times before, and it usually meant that he was going to work for forty-eight hours at a stretch until some problem or other was solved. Roger bowed and withdrew-depositing the whole burden on the shoulders of Daniel, who could already feel himself sagging.

“WE MUST HUNT DOWN JACK the Coiner, clap him in irons, and force him to testify that he adulterated a Pyx that, until he put his filthy hands into it, was filled with sound coins,” said Sir Isaac Newton. He and Daniel had found a table in the corner. “What would be even better than his testimony, we might compel him to yield up any good guineas that he might have stolen from the Pyx, which would exonerate me beyond even the powers of Jesuits.”

“If that is your wish, Isaac, I am pleased to let you know that the pursuit of Jack has been underway for some months, and that it is being pressed forward by-”

“Your Clubb-yes, I know about your Clubb,” Isaac said. “I shall require membership.”

“The bylaws require a vote on such matters,” Daniel said.

This was a jest. Isaac in this mood was not very receptive to it. “It should not be an obstacle. I propose, in effect, to merge the Mint’s investigation of coiners with your Clubb’s pursuit of those who wrought the Infernal Devices, since we have abundant reasons to believe that they are the same. The advantages to the Clubb are obvious.”

“Then let us anticipate the Clubb’s vote, and act as if you were already a member in good standing,” Daniel said, placing both palms flat on the tabletop, and pressing himself up to his feet. Isaac rose, too. The mutton pies were coming toward them on a silver platter; Daniel redirected the waiter to an exit.

“The timing is felicitous,” Daniel continued. “Haply, I have become aware of an important witness who wishes to have an interview with me.”

Isaac was already in movement toward the exit. “I have hired a carriage for the day,” he threw back over one shoulder. “Where shall I tell the driver we wish to go?”

“Tell him,” Daniel returned, “that we are going to Bedlam.”