When at the end of February they arrive at Newark, the Surveyors find secure behind the Bar a pile of Correspondence forwarded to them by Mr. Chew, wherein lies news both cheery and crushing. There is the Pos?sibility of further Engagement in America, measuring a Degree of Lati?tude for the Royal Society. There is also a letter from John Bird, with news of Maskelyne's elevation to H.M. Astronomer. "You were expecting me to scream, weren't you?" "No,— no, Mason, tha being a grown Man and all,— "Actually, I'm quite reliev'd. Didn't need that on my Mind, did I? Arh, arh! Let us be blithe about it, for goodness' sake! What a wonderful Omen under which to begin the West Line," Mason raising his Tankard with an abruptness advisable only in Rooms where one's Face is known. "At the very moment he was elevated, I lay flat upon a Back that for all I knew was broken, in a desert place in New Jersey."
"We're curs'd, you knew thah'...?" Dixon tries to bear down and attend closely. "And none could have foreseen,—
"Oh, Maskelyne knew that Bradley was ill,"— Mason attempting to be chirpy is less easy to bear than Mason in blackest Melancholy,— "ev'ryone knew it, as ev'ryone knew that Bliss would come on only as Caretaker, for he as well was old, and ailing, yet there should be time enough left him, for each Aspirant to make his interest as he might—" "Why aye, and yet you always knew he cultivated— " 'Cultivated,'— poh. Maskelyne caress'd, and slither'd, insinuating himself into an old man's esteem,— for having done nothing, really, one more lad from Cambridge, clever with Numbers, tho' none beyond that damn'd Tripos Riddling, who but happens to be Clive of fucking India's, fucking, Brother-in-law! Ahhr, Dixon! this seventh Wrangler, this bilious, windy Hypnotick in the Herbal of human character, this mean-spirited intriguer,— his usage of poor Mr. Harrison, and his Chronometer, how contemptible. Few are his ideas, Lunarian is his one Faith, to plod is his entire Project. He will never make any discov?ery on the order of Aberration, nor Nutation,— he is unworthy, damn him! to succeed James Bradley." His face is wet, more with Spittle than Tears.
"Eeh, Mason." Dixon by now has learn'd to stay at a respectful dis?tance, and not to rely too heavily upon Touch as a way of communicating. "You believ'd... Really...?"
"Oh well, 'really,'— it's like a Woman, isn't it, you look at each other, you think Of course not, she thinks Of course not,— yet the Alternatives hang about, don't they, like Wraiths."
"Eehh, City Matters, would I knoah anything about thah'?"
"I was up there four years, I lost two women I lov'd, God help me. I lost Bradley, dear to me as well. Were Tears Sixpences, I'd have more invested in that miserable hilltop than Maskelyne could borrow, be the co-signer Clive himself. Well, let him never sleep. Let him pace those rooms, one after another, in the idled silence of the afternoons, till he hears the voices telling him he has no right there, and to go away. Let him stand at last in the Octagon Room, and shiver in the height of Sum?mer. Let him fear to stay up for stars that culminate too late,— Aahhrrhh!"
"Mason,— aren't Maskelyne and Morton both Cambridge men? Wasn't it Morton who put his name forward? They must have wanted one of their own...?"
