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He could see them sitting up straight at the name of Malthus – it was
science
that won the debate. He lifts his glass again, tips it to the light. “To science,” he calls. Then, seeming to see something in Henry’s silence, he suddenly abandons the debate, agrees to offer it up for ridicule. The comic mask falls over his face. “A riddle for you,” he says. “How is a Headstrong debate like a pint of Boodle’s ale?”
    Henry has heard this before. “Foamy and frothy on top?” he asks heavily, feeling the port rise at that very moment to his head.
    “Heavy and muddy within, haha.”
    On the wall above, Beau Brummel stands in aquatint, a graceful hand on a graceful hip. “I was stood drinks all night by
Forester
,” Clement crows. “
Simon Forester?
” He lifts his eyebrows theatrically. London agent for Napoleon Bonaparte? Why, just last week Forester was commissioned by Bony to buy a thousand tickets from London bookmakers. Or so Clement hadheard. “It’s not right,” he cries, finding a segue to the evening’s hilarity. “Where does it leave the rest of us? There must be an exclusion for men of destiny.”
    “Perhaps Bonaparte’s betting on his own defeat?” says Henry, feeling a violent longing for the towpath by the Thames.
    “Haha,” says Clement absently. No contributions accepted, apparently: the hilarity was for members only. He crosses his legs, batting at one of the wandering calves, and then he reaches over to the table for his snuff box, passing it to Henry with a look of suppressed provocation. He knows Henry won’t take snuff. He wants to show the box, an enamel of an imploring Negro in chains. And the legend:
Am I not a man and a brother?
    “Thank you, no,” says Henry, passing the snuff box back. His head is pulled irresistibly to the arm of the divan. The wall of the drawing room sags towards him, the lamplight swoons. “Where is she?” Henry mumbles. “My mother. Do you know where she is?”
    The next morning, Clement takes Henry on a promenade through Soho. Rain overnight left pools of water lying on the streets, and women wearing pattens click along the pavement. Most of the grand houses are apartments let out to members of Parliament come in from the country, or to gentlemen about town and the ladies they consort with. Clement likes to tell about Mrs. Hamilton living on this street when Lord Nelson died, he shows Henry the very house (a different house, Henry notes, than the last time he was taken on this tour). And there’s the house where the celebrated actress Mrs. Pope died and from which she was taken to be buried. “In the cloister,” says Clement reverently. “In the Abbey.” Clement’s friend William Bullock, the famous collector, is building a new exhibition hall on Piccadilly. It’s a grand edifice, fronted in a fine granite. An immense statue, extravagantly roped as though caught in a poacher’s net, is being hoisted into place onthe first floor. William Bullock himself stands on the pavement in a horsehair wig in lieu of a hat, supervising the installation. This is the sort of marvel I can offer up daily, Clement says by his sparkling manner, pulling Henry along. Now that he’s had a proper breakfast of kippers and eggs at the Halfmoon Inn, Henry is sullen at having squandered his freedom. Mr. Bullock greets them with professional friendliness, but introductions are interrupted by shouts from the men on the pulleys. The statue rises serenely above them and settles heavily on its marble platform over their heads. Something about the statue’s hair is in keeping with the hieroglyphics carved on the granite facing stone. “Is your hall to house Egyptian artifacts?” Henry asks.
    “No, no,” laughs his uncle, trying to draw Mr. Bullock into amusement at Henry’s ignorance.
    “There
will
be a mummy in permanent exhibit, lad,” says Mr. Bullock kindly. “But the Egyptian is just a style the public’s enamoured of at the moment. This hall will house