“Slide in, gents,” said he.

The Brentford Snail Boy slid a flabby hand across the table of the “Lower Rank Performers” dressing room, took up a powder puff and dabbed chalk dust around and about his face. He examined his reflection in the brightly lit mirror and considered it up to passing muster, although not to passing mustard, and certainly not salt.

The Lower Rank Performers dressing room was packed with Lower Rank Performers: conjoined twins, pig-faced ladies, dwarves and midgets, dog-faced boys and alligator girls.

Master Scribbens sighed. These were his people. He was a freak and so were they: outsiders, things to be gawped at and laughed at by “normal” folk.

“A regular dandy,” said a soft lisping voice to the rear of the Snail Boy. “A regular matinee idol.”

Master Makepiece Scribbens looked up from his own reflection to that of the man who stood behind him.

The man who was partly man.

Mr Joseph Merrick.

Tonight he was maskless and clad in an enormous top hat, white tie and tails. He wore a white kid glove (tanned through a process which demanded extensive use of the pure) upon his serviceable right hand; the other was hidden by a sealskin muff. He leaned upon an ebony cane and grinned in a lopsided fashion that was grotesque to behold.

“Joey,” said Makepiece. “I didn’t know you were on the bill tonight.”

“I’m not.” The Elephant Man took a seat next to the Snail Boy. “I’m a guest of Her Majesty, Gawd give her one for me. In the Royal Box. I’m sitting next to Princess Alexandra.”

“Lucky you,” said Master Scribbens.

“And she’s begging for it,” said Mr Merrick. “Keeps touching my good knee. I’m in there, I can tell you.”

Master Scribbens sighed. “I haven’t reached puberty yet,” said he. “But when I do, I hope that I’ll be as big a success with the ladies as you are.”

Joseph Merrick made elephantine trumpetings. “Sorry,” said he. “I shouldn’t laugh. But look at yourself. All you’ve got going for you is an abundance of natural lubricant. The ladies I pleasure get moist at the very sight of me.”

“You’re a very crude man,” said Master Scribbens.

“I’m sorry,” said Mr Merrick. “I don’t wish to offend you. You and I are two of a kind, which is to say that we are not as others. We are neither one thing, nor the other. So what are we truly, tell me that?”

“Alone,” said Master Scribbens and he said it in a most plaintive tone. “Always alone, no matter whose company we are in. Even among our own kind.”

“Precisely. But things will change. Believe me, they will change.”

“I can’t imagine how,” said Master Scribbens.

“Oh they will.” The Elephant Man tapped his pendulous hooter. “They will change tonight. They will change forever. Be assured of that. I know these things. Trust me, I’m a freak.”

A freak. Someone different; someone apart; someone cursed by their own difference. But let’s not get too heavy here. But then, again, let’s do.

Mr H.G. Wells was certainly different. You can’t get much more different than being invisible. Mr H.G. Wells moved invisibly along a corridor. He had spent the day aboard the flying circus, checking it inch by painstaking inch, and so far had found absolutely nothing. He had entered the great central arena, the big top itself, which occupied the gondola at the centre of the five-pointed dirigible. He had marvelled at its splendour and design: seating for two thousand people, Royal boxes, an orchestra stand, a domed glass ceiling, above which could be seen the star-strung sky; and a mass of gilded ornamentation all around and about, which created the effect of some Rajah’s palace.

He had branched out from there, into the numerous offices and sleeping accommodation, and stables, and catering areas and latrines and playrooms and storerooms.

And he had found absolutely nothing.

He had reached the cockpit and the engine rooms.

He had followed upon the polished ivory heels of Count Otto, as he strutted here and strutted there, attending to the minutiae of detail that ensured the Perfect Show.

He’d listened to all that the Count had said, even his whispered words.

And he had learned absolutely nothing, nothing to even suggest that this was anything more than a circus; an incredible circus, albeit, but a circus none the less.

“I am baffled,” said H.G. Wells to himself and he shook his invisible head.

The cabbie shook his head. “The traffic up here,” he said. “Chronic it is. Sorry, gents, but we’re in for a bit of a wait.”

The aerial cabs were nose to tail, queuing to dispatch their glamorous cargoes of lords, ladies and London glitterati at the circus entrance beneath the central big top.

“We’ll be a while,” said the cabbie.

“You’ll probably want to switch off your meter, then,” said Will.

“I probably won’t,” said the cabbie. “In fact, I definitely won’t.”

“Perhaps there’s another way in,” said Tim. “A back door or something. Perhaps we could slip in unseen.”

“Ain’t you got tickets, then?” asked the cabbie.

“Count Otto is a friend of ours,” said Will. “We’d like to surprise him. Perhaps you might leave the queue and fly around the circus. There might be somewhere else you could drop us off.”

“As you please,” said the cabbie, and he dropped his cab from the queue, then circled it up in a glorious arc and swung about over the dirigible.

“Look at the size of it,” said Tim. “It looks even bigger up close.”

Will rolled his eyes. “Fly very slowly around, cabbie,” he said. “Let’s see what we can see.”

“As you please,” said the cabbie once more.

“He’s very good,” said Tim. “A good pilot.”

“Thank you sir,” said the cabbie. “I got this cab from my brother. It was his you see, but he can’t fly it any more. He had a tragic accident.”

“In this cab?” Tim asked.

“Well, actually, yes. He was taking a Colonel William Starling to the launching of the moonship. But the Colonel threw him out of the cab into a pond at Crystal Palace. Broke both his legs. Then the Colonel crashed the cab. Cost me a packet to get it fixed up again. What a bastard that Colonel Starling, eh? I hope they catch him and string him up.”

“Right,” said Tim.

And “Right,” said Will.

“There,” said the cabbie. “Down there. See that gantry running the length of the southern star arm, I could drop you off on that, if you like. Then you can fend for yourselves.”

“Do that,” said Will and the cabbie steered the aerial hansom close in to the gantry.

“There you go, gents. That’s one and threepence on the clock.”

“Pay him, Tim,” said Will.

Tim patted his pockets. “I’m penniless,” he said. “I think someone deftly relieved me of all my money.”

“Me too,” said Will. “Winston the paperboy lifted my wallet.”

“This is most upsetting,” said the cabbie. “Generally in such situations, I close my hatch, engage the central locking, then fly the cab round to my other brother, Gentlemen Jim Corbett, barefist champion of Britain, and have him beat the non-payers to a bloody pulp.”

“We don’t really have time for that,” said Will. “But listen, as we’re sneaking in, we could let you have our tickets. Numbered seats in the front row. What do you say to that?”

“So where will you be sitting?”

“We’ll find somewhere. What do you say?”

“I say, thank you very much. Give me the tickets.”

Will took out the tickets and handed them through the little glass partition to the cabbie.

“Thanks very much to you,” said that man, examining the tickets. “Seats twelve and thirteen, row A. Careful how you go now.”

“Farewell,” said Will and he and Tim left the hovering cab and clambered onto the gantry.

A bit of a wind was blowing.

“It’s chilly up here,” said Tim. “Like being on a very high rooftop.”