But when the assistants had all found ways to make themselves busy cataloguing and appraising, he turned towards Daniel and foamed up like a bottle of champagne. “Can’t say what an immense pleasure it is to see you, old chap!”

“Really, I do not think my countenance is all that pleasing at the moment, Mr. Pepys, but it is extraordinarily decent of you to fake it so vigorously.”

Samuel Pepys straightened up, blinked once, and parted his lips as if to follow up on the Conversational Opportunity Daniel had just handed him. The hand trembled and crept toward the Pocket where the Stone had lurked these thirty years. But some gentlemanly instinct averted him; he’d not crash the conversation onto that particular Hazard just yet. “I’d have thought you would be in Massachusetts by now, from the things the Fellows were saying.”

“I should have begun making my preparations immediately following the Revolution,” Daniel admitted, “but I delayed until after Jeffreys had his enounter with Mr. Jack Ketch at the Tower-by then, ’twas April, and I discovered that in order to leave London I should have to liquidate my life-which has proved much more of a bother than I had expected. Really, ’Tis much more expedient simply to drop dead and let one’s mourners see to all of these tedious dispositions.” Daniel waved a hand over his book-stacks, which were dwindling rapidly as Pepys’s corps of librarian-mercenaries carried them towards their master and piled them at his feet. Pepys glanced at the cover of each and then flicked his eyes this way or that to indicate whether they should be returned, or taken away; the latter went to a hard-bitten old computer who had set himself up with a lap-desk, quill, and inkwell, and was scratching out a bill of particulars.

Daniel’s remark on the convenience of dropping dead laid a second grievous temptation in the way of Mr. Pepys, who had to clench his fist to keep it from stabbing into the pocket. Fortunately he was distracted by an assistant who held before him a large book of engravings of diverse fishes. Pepys frowned at it for a moment. Then he recognized and rejected in the same instant, with revulsion. The R.S. had printed too many copies of it several years ago. Ever since, Fellows had been fobbing copies off on each other, trying to use them as legal tender for payment of old debts, employing them as doorstops, table-levelers, flower-presses, et cetera.

Daniel was not normally a cruel man, but he had been laid flat by nausea for days, and could not resist tormenting Pepys yet a third time: “Thy judgment is swift and remorseless, Mr. Pepys. Each book goes to thy left hand or thy right. When a ship founders in a hurricano, and Saint Peter is suddenly confronted with a long queue of soggy souls, not even he could despatch ’em to their deserved places as briskly as thee.”

“You are toying with me, Mr. Waterhouse; you have penetrated my deception, you know why I have come.”

“Not at all. How goes it with you since the Revolution? I have heard nothing of you.”

“I am retired, Mr. Waterhouse. Retired to the life of a gentleman scholar. My aims now are to assemble a library to rival Sir Elias Ashmole’s, and to try to fill the void that shall be left by your departure from the day-to-day affairs of the Royal Society.”

“You must have been tempted to plunge into the new Court, the new Parliament-”

“Not in the slightest.”

“Really?”

“To move in those circles is a bit like swimming. Swimming with rocks in one’s pockets! It demands ceaseless exertions. To let up is to die. I bequeath that sort of life to younger and more energetic strivers, like your friend the Marquis of Ravenscar. At my age, I am happy to stand on dry land.”

“What about those rocks in your pockets?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I am giving you a cue, Mr. Pepys-the segue you have been looking for.”

“Ah, well done!” said Pepys, and in a lunge he was by Daniel’s bedside, holding the auld Stone right up in his face.

Daniel had never seen it quite this close before, and he noticed now that it had a pair of symmetrically placed protrusions, like little horns, where it had begun growing up into the ureters leading down from Pepys’s kidneys. This made him queasy and so he shifted his attention to Pepys’s face, which was nearly as close.

“BEHOLD! My Death-premature, senseless, avoidable Death-mine, and yours, Daniel. But I hold mine in my hand. Yours is lodged thereabouts-do not flinch, I shall not lay hands on you-I wish only to demonstrate, Daniel, that thy Stone is only two inches or so from my hand when I hold it thus. My Stone is in my hand. A distance of only two inches! Yet for me that small interval amounts to thirty years of added life-three decades and God willing one or two more, of wenching, drinking, singing, and learning. I beg you to make the necessary arrangements, Daniel, and have that rock in your bladder moved two inches to your pocket, where it may lodge for another twenty or thirty years without giving you any trouble.”

“They are a very significant two inches, Mr. Pepys.”

“Obviously.”

“During the Plague Year, when we lodged at Epsom, I held candles for Mr. Hooke while he dissected the bodies of diverse creatures-humans included. By then I had enough skill that I could dissect most parts of most creatures. But I was always baffled by necks, and by those few inches around the bladder. Those parts had to be left to the superior skill of Mr. Hooke. All those orifices, sphincters, glands, frightfully important bits of plumbing-”

At the mention of Hooke’s name, Pepys brightened as if he had been put in mind of something to say; but as Daniel’s anatomy lesson drew on, his expression faded and soured.

“I of course know this, ” Pepys finally said, cutting him off.

“Of course.”

“I know it of my own knowledge, and I have had occasion to review and refresh my mastery of the subject whenever some dear friend of mine has died of the Stone-John Wilkins comes to mind-”

“That is low, a very low blow, for you to mention him now!”

“He is gazing down on you from Heaven saying, ‘Can’t wait to see you up here Daniel, but I don’t mind waiting another quarter-century or so, by all means take your time, have that Stone out, and finish your work.’”

“I really think you cannot possibly be any more disgraceful now, Mr. Pepys, and I beg you to leave a sick man alone.”

“All right… let’s to the pub then!”

“I am unwell, thank you.”

“When’s the last time you ate solid food?”

“Can’t remember.”

“Liquid food, then?”

“I’ve no incentive to take on liquids, lacking as I do the means of getting rid of ’em.”

“Come to the pub anyway, we are having a going-away party for you.”

“Call it off, Mr. Pepys. The equinoctial gales have begun. To sail for America now were foolish. I have entered into an arrangement with a Mr. Edmund Palling, an old man of my long acquaintance, who has for many years longed to migrate to Massachusetts with his family. It has been settled that in April of next year we shall board the Torbay, a newly built ship, at Southend-on-Sea; and after a voyage of approximately-”

“You’ll be dead a week from now.”

“I know it.”

“Perfect time for a going-away party then.” Pepys clapped his hands twice. Somehow this caused loud thumping noises to erupt in the hall outside.

“I cannot walk to your carriage, sir.”

“No need,” Pepys said, opening the door to reveal two porters carrying a sedan-chair-one of the smallest type, little more than a sarcophagus on sticks, made so that its occupant could be brought from the street all the way into a house before having to climb out, and therefore popular among shy persons, such as prostitutes.

“Ugh, what will people think?”