The Difference Engine

Velasco's face clouded with suspicion. "Journalist? What sort of journalist?" he demanded, glancing from Oliphant to Fraser and back.

"Travel pieces, primarily," Oliphant said, "though I'm currently engaged, with Mr. Fraser's able help, in compiling a popular history of the Great Stink."

Tate peered narrowly at Oliphant. "Mallory, you said. What about 'im?"

"I interviewed Dr. Mallory prior to his departure for China. His experiences during the Stink were most remarkable, and highly illustrative of the perils that might befall anyone during such a chaotic period."

" 'Befall anyone'?" Velasco challenged. "Rubbish! Mallory's trouble was savantry trouble and your Mr. Fraser knows it well enough!"

"Yes, yes, quite," Oliphant agreed. "And that is why I am delighted to have encountered you gentlemen tonight."

Velasco and Tate glanced uncertainly at one another. "You are?" Tate ventured.

"Utterly. You see. Dr. Mallory explained to me the unfortunate contretemps with his rival and fellow savant, Peter Foulke. It seems, you see, that even in the most rarified circles, during a period of such unprecedented stress—"

"You'll not see Peter bloody Foulke moving in your rarified bloody circles now," Velasco interjected, "not for all his gentry posing." He paused for effect. "He was discovered in bed with a girl not twelve years old!"

"No!" Oliphant feigned shock. "Foulke? But surely—"

"He was," Tate affirmed, "in Brighton, and those as found him beat the bugger silly and flung him stark-naked into the street!"

"But it wasn't us did that," Velasco stated flatly, "and you'll not prove it was."

"There's a new trend of thought about," Tate said, thrusting his shallow chest forward so as to better display his Union Jack insignia, the gin-reddened tip of his button-nose glinting wetly, "such as doesn't tolerate decadence," giving equal stress to the word's three syllables, "be it in the savantry or however high at all. Hidden wickedness ran rife under Byron, all ma

"Sabotage on a titanic scale," Velasco pronounced darkly, as if quoting from a speech, "abetted by conspirators in the highest ranks of society! But there are true patriots among us, sir, patriots at work to root that evil out!" The terrier growled in Velasco's arms, and Fraser looked on the verge of throttling man and dog alike.

"We're Parliamentary investigators," Tate said, "about a Member's business, and I'm sure you'd not care to detain us."

Oliphant put his hand upon Fraser's sleeve.

With a smirk of triumph, Velasco soothed his little dog and sauntered to the stairs. Tate followed. From overhead came the mad yapping of dogs and the hoarse cries of sportsmen.

"They're working for Egremont," Oliphant said.

Fraser's face twisted with disgust. Disgust and something akin to amazement.

"There seems nothing more to be done here, Fraser. I take it you arranged for a cab?"

Mr. Mori Arinori, Oliphant's favorite among his young Japanese "pupils," took a fierce delight in all things British. Oliphant, who customarily breakfasted lightly if at all, would sometimes subject himself to massively "English" breakfasts to please Mori, who on this particular occasion wore the burliest of golfing-tweeds and a scarf in the tartan of the Royal Hibernian Order of Steam Engineers.

There was a certain enjoyably melancholy sense of paradox, Oliphant mused, in watching Mori spread a slice of toast with marmalade, while he himself indulged a nostalgia for his own days in Japan, where he had served as first-secretary under Rutherford Alcock. His stay in Edo had nurtured in him a passionate regard for the muted tones and subtle textures of a world of ritual and shadow. He longed now for the rattle of rain blown against oiled paper, for flowering weeds a-nod down tiny alleys, the glow of rush-lamps, for scents and darknesses, the shadows of the Low City…

"Oriphant-san, toast is very good, is most excellent! You are sad, Oriphant-san?"

"No, Mr. Mori, not at all." He helped himself to bacon, though he wasn't hungry in the least. He put aside a sudden intrusive memory of the morning's hideous bath, the black clinging rubber. "I was recalling Edo. That city possessed great charm for me."

Mori chewed bread and marmalade, regarding Oliphant steadily with his bright dark eyes, then dabbed expertly at his lips with a linen napkin. " 'Charm.' Your word for the old ways. The old ways hinder my nation. Only this week have I posted to Satsuma an argument against the wearing of swords." The bright eyes darted, for a fractional moment, toward the crooked fingers of Oliphant's left hand. As if stung by the pressure of Mori's awareness, the scar beneath Oliphant's cuff began a slow ache.

"But, Mr. Mori," Oliphant said, setting his silver fork aside to abandon the unwanted bacon, "the sword, in your country, is in many respects the focal symbol of the feudal ethic and the sentiments attaching to it—an object of reverence second only to one's own lord."

Mori smiled, pleased. "Odious custom of rude and savage age. This is good to be rid of, Oriphant-san. This is modern day!" This latter a favorite and frequent expression.

Oliphant returned the smile. Mori combined boldness and compassion with a certain problematical brashness that Oliphant found most appealing. More than once, to Bligh's dismay, Mori had paid some cockney cabman, full fare plus tip, and then invited the fellow into Oliphant's kitchen for a meal. "But you must learn to proceed apace, Mr. Mori. While you yourself may regard the wearing of swords as a primitive custom, to openly oppose this minor matter might well provoke resistance to other, more important reforms, the deeper changes you wish to implement in your society."

Mori nodded gravely. "Your policy no doubt has merit, Oriphant-san. Far better, for example, if all Japanese were taught English. Our meager tongue is of no use in the great world beyond our islands. Soon power of steam and the Engine must pervade our land. English language, following such, must suppress any use of Japanese. Our intelligent race, eager in pursuit of knowledge, ca

Oliphant tilted his head to one side, considering Mori carefully. "Mr. Mori," he said, "pardon me if I misunderstand you, but am I correct in assuming that you are proposing nothing less than the deliberate abolition of the Japanese language?"

"This is modern day, Oriphant-san, modern day! All reasons support our tongue's disuse."

Oliphant smiled. "We must arrange to discuss this at length, Mr. Mori, but now I must ask if you are engaged this evening. I propose an entertainment."

"By all means, Oriphant-san. English social festivities are ever gratifying." Mori beamed.

"We shall go then, to Whitechapel, to the Garrick Theatre, for what I understand is a most unusual pantomime."

According to the spottily stippled program, the Clown was known as "Jackdaw Jaculation," though this was perhaps the least peculiar aspect of that evening's performance, by the Manhattan Women's Red Pantomime Troupe, of 'Mazulem the Night Owl'. Other characters included "Freedman Bureau Bill, a black boy," "Levy Stickemall, a merchant, offering two segars for five cents," "a Yankee Peddler," "a Lady Shop-Lifter," "a Roast Turkey," and the eponymous "Mazulem."

All of the players, to judge by the program, were female, though in several cases this would otherwise have been quite impossible to determine. The Clown, ornate with frills, in elaborately spangled satin, boasted an egg-bald shaven pate and the sinister white-face of the Pierrot, touched with color only in the outlined lips.