The Confusion

“If he is not fettered by Politicks.”

“Daniel, you offend me. What you have just said amounts to a suggestion that the Juncto is politically incompetent. May I remind you that Recoinage has been approved-by Commons as well as Lords? So we shall only have to put up with this rubbish for a little while longer.” The Chancellor of the Exchequer reached into his shoe and pulled out a wad of Bank of England paper money he’d stuffed into it to keep his feet warm, and waggled it in the chilly air for emphasis. Then-disgusted by the sight of it-he chucked it over his shoulder into the Thames. Neither he nor the waterman looked back.

“That was a foolish and profligate waste,” Daniel said. “We could’ve burned it to keep warm.”

“Tally-sticks make more heat, guv’nor,” volunteered the waterman, “and they are circulating at a discount of forty percent.”

“Isaac will be sworn in at the Mint at the beginning of May,” said Roger. “It is now February. How shall we occupy ourselves between now and then? Your intention is to carry forward that Comenius-Wilkins-Leibniz Pansophic Arithmetickal Engine-Logick Mill-Algebra of Ratiocination-Automatic Computation-Repository of all Knowledge project, is it not?”

“We need a better name for it,” Daniel conceded, “but you know perfectly well the answer is yes.”

“Then you really had ought to go have a chat with Leibniz first, or do you disagree?”

“Of course I don’t disagree,” said Daniel, “but even if money existed in this Realm, I should not possess any, and so I had not really considered it.”

“I found some old louis d’or, pre-debasement, in a sock,” Roger confided to him, “and should be pleased to advance them to you, while we wait for Isaac to stoke up the Mint.”

“What on earth would I do with French coins?”

“Buy things with them,” said Roger, “in France.”

“We are at war with France!”

“It has been a very slow war of late-one battle of consequence in the last two years.”

“Still-why should I go there?”

“It happens to be on the way to Germany, which is where Leibniz was, the last time anyone bothered to check.”

“It would be more prudent to avoid France.”

“But ever so much more convenient to go there direct-for that is where your jacht happens to be bound.”

“I have a jacht now, too?”

“Behold!” proclaimed the Marquis of Ravenscar. Daniel was obliged to swivel his head around and gaze downstream. They had, by this time, drifted past the Steelyard and were converging on the Old Swan Stairs, just above London Bridge. On the yonder side of the Bridge spread the Pool, which contained above a thousand ships.

“I haven’t the faintest idea what it is you want me to behold,” Daniel complained. “The Fishmongers?” For that was the closest thing along the azimuth that Roger was now forcibly indicating with bladelike thrusts of the hand.

“Oh, bloody hell,” said Roger, “she is at Tower Wharf, you cannot see her from here, let us go and pay her a visit.” And he alighted from the boat and stomped away up Old Swan Stairs without giving any money to, or even glancing back at, the waterman; who, however, seemed perfectly content. Roger must have an Understanding with him, as he seemed to with all London, a few Jacobites excepted.