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Og. looked as if he had been punched in the gut.

“Five pounds,” said Cave.

“Stent, I say, you can’t … well, that is … I mean, dash it…”

“Yes, Ogilvy, was there something?”

I drew out my wallet and handed over five pounds. Cave entered the sale in an ancient register, then fussed about extracting the object from the window.

I looked at Og. He tried unsuccessfully to cover fury and disappointment.

“Now about that loan,” I said, wallet still open.

“Doesn’t matter now,” he said — and left the shop, setting the bell above the door a-jangle.

Another name off the List!

Cave came back with the object, cradled in black velvet. It struck me that I need only say I’d changed my mind to reclaim my outlay. But Og. might creep back and get the blessed thing after all. Couldn’t have that.

Cave held up the crystal and said something about ‘the inner light’. Strange phrase. He meant the refraction, of course, but a lecture on optics would have been out of place in this circumstance. No fee would be forthcoming, and it doesn’t do to cheapen the currency of scholarship by dishing out lectures gratis.

I took the thing away with me. Perhaps I can use it as a paper-weight after all.

Roast boar with apricots at the Lord Mayor’s. Congress with Lady Caroline in the carriage on the way home. Whoosh!

September 7: An odd day.

Luncheon at Simpson’s in the Strand with Jedwood, my publisher. Cream of turbot, hock of ham, peppered pear. An acceptable muscadet, porter, sherry. The Refutation pamphlet is shifting briskly, and J. is eager for more. Pity Moriarty hasn’t fired other literary clay pigeons I could blast to bits. J. proposes a collection of Refutations and suggests I consider expanding the arena of combat, to launch my intellectual ballista against other so-called great minds of the age. J. is a dolt — he doesn’t understand the List, or that it is as important to choose the proper enemies as the proper friends. Nevertheless, I’m tempted. Tom Huxley, Darwin’s old bulldog, could do with having his ears boxed for a change. And I didn’t care for the way George Stokes hovered over Lady Caroline at the last Royal Society formal. Those Navier-Stokes equations have their tiny little cracks.

Most extraordinary thing. As J. and I were leaving the restaurant, a wild-haired, sun-burned fellow accosted us in the street, gabbling “The Martians are coming, the Martians are coming!” Ever since Schiaparelli put about that nonsense about canals, there has been debate about how one should address the notional inhabitants of the planet Mars. I am firmly of the belief that ‘Marsian’ is the only acceptable term. I took the trouble to correct the moonatic on this point, but he was in no condition to listen. He grabbed my lapels with greasy fingers and breathed gin in my face. He called me by name, which was discomforting. “Sir Nevil,” he said, “keep watching the skies! Look to the Red Planet! Look into the Crystal Egg!”

J. summoned a hefty constable, who laid a hand on the madman’s shoulder. The fellow writhed in the grasp of the law, and a look of heightened terror passed over his face. It is no wonder men of his stripe should fear the police, but the extent of his pantomime of fright struck me as excessive even for his situation. Curiously, the constable seemed humpbacked, tailored uniform emphasizing rather than concealing a pronounced lump on one shoulder. I assumed the Metropolitan Police imposed strict physical requirements on their recruits. Perhaps this fellow’s condition has worsened in recent years? Something was not quite right about his hump, which I could swear wobbled like a jelly on a plate. His eyes were glassy and his face pale — indeed, our lawful officer was evidently in as poor a shape as our degenerate semi-assailant.

“Don’t let them take me,” begged the madman, “they wraps round you … and they bites … and they sucks your brains … and you ain’t you no more. I’ve seen it!”

“Let’s … be … ‘avin … you … my … lad,” said the policeman, voice like