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So the matter was complicated. And it only become more so ten minutes later, when, during a bombardment of “Maestricht,” a cannon burst in full view of all spectators. Most people assumed it was just a stage-trick until bloody fragments of artillerymen began to shower down all among them, mingling with the continual flurry of handbills.

Daniel walked back to Gresham’s College and worked all night with Hooke. Hooke stayed below, gazing up at various stars, and Daniel remained on the roof, looking at a nova that was flaring in the west end of London: a Mobb of people with torches, milling around St. James’s Fields and discharging the occasional musket. Later, he learned that they had attacked Comstock House, supposedly because they were furious about the cannon that had burst.

John Comstock himself showed up at Gresham’s College the next morning. It took several moments for Daniel to recognize him, so altered was his countenance by shock, by outrage, and even by shame. He demanded that Hooke and the rest drop what they were doing and investigate the remnants of the burst cannon, which he insisted had been tampered with in some way “by mine enemies.”

College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, Cambridge
1672

There are few things, that are incapable of being represented by a fiction.

-HOBBES,Leviathan

Once More into the Breeches
A COMEDY
DRAMATISPERSONAE

MEN:

MR. VANUNDERDEVATER, a Dutchman, founder of a great commercial empire in sow’s-ears and potatoes’-eyes

NZINGA, a cannibal Neeger, formerly King of the Congo, now house-slave to Mr. van Underdevater

JEHOSHAPHATSTOPCOCK, the Earl of BRIMSTONE, an enthusiast

TOMRUNAGATE, a discharged soldier turned Vagabond

THEREV.YAHWEHPUCKER, a Dissident divine

EUGENESTOPCOCK, son of Lord Brimstone, a Captain of Foot

FRANCISBUGGERMY, Earl of Suckmire, a foppish courtier

DODGE ANDBOLT, two of Tom Runagate’s accomplices

WOMEN:

MISSLYDIA VANUNDERDEVATER, the daughter and sole heiress of Mr. van Underdevater, recently returned from a Venetian finishing-school

LADYBRIMSTONE, wife to Jehoshaphat Stopcock

MISSSTRADDLE, Tom Runagate’s companion

SCENE:

SUCKMIRE, a rural estate in Kent

ACTI. SCENEI.

SCENE:a Cabin in a Ship at Sea. Thunder heard, flashes of Lightning seen.

Enter Mr. van Underdevater in dressing-gown, with a lanthorn.

VANUND: Boatswain!

Enter Nzinga wet, with a Sack.

NZINGA:Here, master, what-

VANUND: Odd’s bodkins! Have you fallen into the tar-pot, boatswain?

NZINGA:It is I, Master-your slave, My Royal Majesty, by the Grace of the tree-god, the rock-god, river-god, and diverse other gods who have slipped my mem’ry, of the Congo, King.

VANUND: So it is. What have you in the bag?

NZINGA:Balls.

VANUND: Balls! Sink me! You have quite forgot your Civilizing Lessons!

NZINGA:Of ice.

VANUND: Thank heavens.

NZINGA:I gathered ’em from the deck-where they are falling like grape-shot-and for this you thank heaven?

VANUND: Aye, for it means the boatswain is still in possession of all his Parts. Boatswain!

Enter LYDIA in dressing-gown, dishevelled.

LYDIA:Dear father, why do you shout for the boatswain so?

VANUND: My dear Lydia, I would fain pay him to bring this infernal storm to an end.

LYDIA:But father, the boatswain can’t stop a tempest!

VANUND: Perhaps he knows someone who can.

NZINGA:I know a weather-god in Guinea who can-and at rates very reasonable, as he will accept payment in rum.

VANUND: Rum! You take me for a half-wit? If this is what the weather-god does when he is sober -

NZINGA:Cowrie-shells would do in a pinch. If master would care to despatch My Majesty on the next southbound boat, My Majesty would be pleased to broker the transaction-

VANUND: You prove yourself a shrewd man of commerce. I am reminded of when I traded the holes in a million cannibals’ ears, for the eyes of a million potatoes, and beat the market at both ends of the deal-

More thunder.

VANUND: Too, slow, too slow! Boatswain!

Enter Lord Brimstone.

LORDBRIMSTONE:Here, here, what is this bawling?

LYDIA:Lord Brimstone-your servant.

VANUND: The price of ending this tempest is too high, the market in Pagan Deities too remote-

LORDB: Then why, sir, do you call for the boatswain?

VANUND: Why, sir, to tell him to be of good courage and to remain firm in the face of danger.

LYDIA:Oh, too late, father!

VANUND: What mean you, child?

LYDIA:When the boatswain heard you, he lost what firmness he had, and fled in a panic.

VANUND: How do you know it?

LYDIA:Why, he upset the hammock altogether, and tumbled me onto the deck!

VANUND: Lydia, Lydia, I have spent a fortune sending you to that school in Venice, where you have been studying to become a virtuous maiden-

LYDIA:And I have studied hard, Father, but it is ever so difficult!

VANUND: Has all that money been wasted?

LYDIA:Oh, no, Father, I learned some lovely songs from our dancing-master, Signore Fellatio.

Sings.*

VANUND: I’ve heard enough-Boatswain!

Enter Lady Brimstone.

LADYBRIMSTONE:My lord, have you found who is making that dreadful noise yet?

LORDB: M’lady, it’s that Dutchman.

LADYB: So much for idle investigations -what have you done about it, my lord?

LORDB: Nothing, my lady, for they say that the only way to quiet one of these obstreperous Dutchmen is to drown him.

LADYB: Drown-why, my lord-you’re not thinking of throwing him overboard-?

LORDB: Every soul aboard is thinking of it, M’lady. But with a Dutchman it isn’t necessary, as they live below sea-level to begin with. ’Tis merely a question of getting the sea to go back where the Good Lord put it in the first place-

LADYB: And how d’you propose to effect that, my lord?

LORDB: I have been conducting experiments on a novel engine to make windmills turn backwards, and pump water down-hill -

LADYB: Experiments! Engines! I say the way to put Dutchmen under water’s with French gunpowder and English courage!

Whatever the actor playing Lord Brimstone said was like expectorating into the River Amazon. For the true SCENEof these events was Neville’s Court*on a spring evening, and the true Dramatis Personae a roll that would’ve consumed many yards of paper and drams of ink to set it out fully. The script was an unpublished masterwork of courtly and collegiate intrigue, comprising hundreds of more or less clever lines being delivered-mostly sotto voce -at the same instant, producing a contrapuntal effect quite intricate but entirely too much for young Daniel Waterhouse to grasp. He had been wondering why persons such as these bothered to go to plays at all, when every day at Whitehall provided more spectacle-now he sensed that they did so because the stories in the theatre were simple, and arrived at fixed conclusions after an hour or two.