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still than the nose, and one that militated against this being mistaken for the face of a nab, I mean well born, was the mouth, which had too much expression about it for a gentleman’s. A droll mouth, yet one capable, you immediately knew, of forming and saying hard things.
    Abruptly he broke from his suppliants, telling them he was sorry, he must excuse himself, he had business with that woman over there.
    Which was me. We made our introductions. “Your humble obedient servant, madam—”
    “Mr. Haslam, your bullies have no right to seize and beat my husband.”
    “Did they? Was he trying to escape?”
    “Yes, because he doesn’t want to be here.”
    “He didn’t go far—”
    “He came home to me! Leadenhall Street! That’s pretty far!”
    “Then returned and hung on the gate?”
    I hesitated. The truth was too mad. “He wanted me to see where he was prisoned.”
    “A consideration that has got him in again, and the problem now is, any release of patients must be sanctioned by the governors’ subcommittee—”
    “That meets today.”
    “I’m afraid they won’t get to your husband today—”
    “They? I thought you sat on that committee—”
    “From time to time. Would this be the Matthews who insists on the Tilly? James Tilly Matthews? Tilly, what is that? Huguenot? So he’s French on one side? His mother a Spitalfields silkweaver?”
    “Yes-”
    “And Welsh father? Interesting. Good. Well. Now we’ve got that far, why’s he with us?”
    I was stunned. “You don’t know?”
    “Nobody’s told me, and he refuses. All I know is his trade, which is tea-broker, and a story of how he’s preventing French chaos here by doing battle with a gang of French magnetic fluid-workers responsible for all madness in this hospital. Ever since he discovered the existence of this gang and others, his energy has gone into opposing what he calls their event-working. Their response has been to have him labelled insane and so rendered harmless, for in here, he says, every word he speaks against them is chalked as another symptom—”
    “He told me he’s in by an order of the Privy Council. He also mentioned Lord Portland—”
    “Your husband’s never spoke of Lord Portland to me, and the only kind of privy he’s mentioned is the close-stool kind, how the stinking condition of ours is an insult to the nostrils of a gentleman, and how a dusty vapour he calls Egyptian snuff overcomes him, conveyed by the gang from Nile marshes in August heat, when stagnant pools emit their nauseous stench. Mind you, it’s also such vapours as Egyptian snuff; effluvia of arsenic, sulphur, and dogs; gas from the anuses of horses; and vapours of human seminal fluids, both male and female, all harnessed in barrels, that power his Air Loom—
    “Mrs. Matthews, we don’t exactly comb the streets. Most people can bellow at the gates as much as they like. This is not a privatemadhouse that must solicit patients of paying families. As to your husband, I would say he’s a republican—”
    “He’s not!” At least, no longer—
    “—in a condition of nervous collapse. Unable to vent his politics for risk of being hanged, he talks nonsense. Whatever the particulars of his initial admission, he’s hied himself back to safety inside the finest madhouse in the world. He’s a lunatic who knows exactly what he’s doing, and while he goes about it, your duty as his concerned spouse is to ensure your visits have a calming effect.”
    “I’ve tried to visit him ever since I found out he was in here! The porter won’t let me pass!”
    This appearing to contradict my claim Jamie had brought me to see where he was kept, Haslam just looked at me. Then he said, “He’s willing to see you?”
    “The porter says not. I say he’s lying!”
    “Why would he lie? You know, it often happens the patient feels betrayed by those that put him in here—”
    “I didn’t put him in here!”
    “Is your husband clearer about that than I