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frequently indefensible Tristram Quinton was hardly my concern.
    Brouncker smiled knowingly. He was pre-eminently a mathematician and scientist, President of the recently established Royal Society, which was how he knew my eccentric uncle, a fellow member and the somewhat unlikely Master of Mauleverer College, Oxford. Brouncker was also newly made a member of the Navy Board, perhaps because the king reckoned that a man who could count might be of some use in the navy, an institution not known for employing the most numerate of men and, perhaps because of that, notorious as a bottomless pit which ever consumed most of the public purse.
    Evelyn finally turned away from the window, clearly still puzzling over the mysterious thunderclap. ‘Your uncle has not favoured you with his opinion of my book of Sylva , perchance?’ he asked. ‘The praise of the eminent Doctor Quinton would be of much worth to me.’
    ‘Alas no, sir,’ I lied, picking some rabbit and anchovies from their pewter plates, ‘I regret that he has not.’ This, I knew, was not the time or the place for the truth of Tristram’s opinion, which was that Evelyn’s attempt to persuade the English of the merit of planting more trees was as worthwhile as a fart in the grave.
    We returned to the table, where Pepys was engaged in a spirited discussion with Lord Brouncker’s brother Harry about the prospects for the impending war against the Dutch. I could tolerate the elder Brouncker, but the younger was quite another matter: an ignorant, flattering courtier of the worst sort, and one of those rabid cavaliers who would gladly have hanged every sometime Commonwealths-man . He was holding forth at some length about the innate superiority of our monarchical navy over that of the malignant republican Dutch, if only the king had not seen fit to recall so many time-serving verminous captains who had once taken Cromwell’s commission. Across from them was Cornelia, who had swiftly made a friend of Mrs Pepys, a vivacious Frenchwoman named Elizabeth; this was unsurprising, for both were foreigners in this strange world called England and both had husbands for whom the navy was the be-all and end-all. The two women were whispering conspiratorially and occasionally laughing indiscreetly. Back across the table from them, Mrs Evelyn, the pious and profoundly intellectual consort of our host, toyed with a morsel of carp, attempting desperately to avoid conversation with Lord Brouncker’s exotically dressed companion, a remarkably buxom and ugly actress named Mrs Abigail Williams. It was an eclectic gathering. Having subsequently hosted many such occasions myself, I have learned that one can swiftly sense whether the assemblage of humanity one has brought together is a success; and this was most certainly not such.
    A case in point was the conversation upon which the party was engaged an hour or two later whilst launching an assault upon a most splendid dessert table of sugar cakes, plum puddings, jellies and more. Our host’s wine was flowing liberally, although Cornelia was speculating on how recently it might have been within the hold of a Dutch prize-ship. Whatever its provenance, it had flowed far too liberally into the gullet of Harry Brouncker, who was now holding forth upon the roguery of Members of Parliament.
    ‘Corrupt!’ he blustered. ‘Self-seeking, to a man! No sense of honour! The sorts of skulking poltroons who count their pennies and record their worthless miserable apologies for lives in diaries!’ Methought both Pepys and Evelyn seemed discommoded by that remark, but I might have been mistaken. ‘Men who will not grant the king enough to support his estate,’ raged Brouncker, ‘nor to wage war properly upon that damnable pack of Fleming butterboxes – ah, my apologies, Mistress Quinton…’
    ‘There is not enough money in the land to fight this war, then, Mister Brouncker?’ asked Elizabeth Pepys in her thick French accent, seeking to deflect the