There was a chorus of protesting voices from the table. A thin-faced man who wore no wig stood up and stepped closer.

“Colonel Pole, this is my house. I will forgive your entry to it uninvited and unannounced, since we understand that medical urgencies must banish formalities. But you interrupt more than a dinner among friends. I am Matthew Boulton, and tonight the Lunar Society meets here on serious matters. Mr. Priestley is visiting from Calne to tell of his latest researches on the new air. He is well begun, but by no means finished. Can your business wait an hour?”

Jacob Pole stood up straighter than ever. “If disease could be made to wait, I would do the same. As it is…” He turned to Darwin again. “I am no more than a messenger here, one who happened to be dining with Will Bailey. I have come at the request of Dr. Monkton, to ask your immediate assistance.”

There was another outcry from those still seated at the table. “Monkton! Monkton asking for assistance? Never heard of such a thing.”

“Forget it, ’Rasmus! Sit back down and try this rhubarb pie.”

“If it’s Monkton,” said a soberly dressed man on the right hand side of the table, “then the patient is as good as dead. He’s no doctor, he’s an executioner. Come on, Colonel Pole, take a glass of claret and sit down with us. We meet too infrequently to relish a disturbance.”

Erasmus Darwin waved him to silence. “Steady, Josiah, I know your views of Dr. Monkton.” He turned full face to Pole, to show a countenance where the front teeth had long been lost from the full mouth. The jaw was jowly and in need of a razor. Only the eyes belied the impression of coarseness and past disease. They were grey and patient, with a look of deep sagacity and profound power of observation.