"Fats ce que voudrais," said Victor, who also knew his Rabelais.

He surprised the printer into laughter by knowing. To hear Custis Cawthorne guffaw, anyone would think him fat and jolly, not a somber-seeming beanpole. Victor didn't know how he brought forth such a sound from that narrow chest, but he did.

"I shall do exactly that," the printer said after guffaws subsided to chuckles. "Hear me, then. When that indifferently written drivel of yours-"

Victor bowed. "Your servant, sir. Plenty of rope for all the critics to hang themselves." That was from Rabelais, too.

"If you were my servant, I'd thump you the way you deserve."

As things are, all of Atlantis has that privilege' Cawthorne said. Before Victor could ask him what he meant, he went on, "Here is the honor I propose giving you: setting your work with the first font of type made on this side of the Atlantic. We not only speak English in Atlantis, we write it and we print it… with or without let or hindrance from the so-called mother country."

"So-called?" Victor raised an eyebrow. "Your ancestors did not come from England?"

"There was a Cawthorne aboard the St. George, which you know as well as I," the printer said. "But a proper mother knows when her offspring is grown and ready to set out on his own. She does not garrison soldiers on him to keep him from leaving home."

"If I were an Englishman, I would clap you in irons for that," Victor said.

"If you were an Englishman, I would despair of Atlantis," Custis Cawthorne replied. "But since, by the favor of Providence, you are not, I still have some hope for us. And I also have some hope of turning your manuscript to print without too much butchery along the way. Multifarious as your flaws may be, you do write a tolerably neat hand."

"I hope you will not do yourself an injury, giving forth with such extravagant praise," Victor said.

"Nothing too serious, anyhow," Cawthorne said. "And a good thing, too, for a visit to the sawbones is likelier to leave a man dead than improved."