Dark Matter

“Pray, Mister Ellis,” said Newton, “don’t take on so. We shall have to daggle a bit, you and I. The business of the Mint requires that I have a man who knows his way around London. That being the case, and to fret you no longer, the position is yours if you want it. The pay is not much. Just sixty pounds a year, to start. Which does not sort well with me, and I confess I am at a vile trouble for fear that the right kind of man will not want the employment and I come to shame because I cannot fulfil the proper duties of my office through lack of an assistant, for whom I have such mighty need. That being the case, it being within my power to do so, I have decided to offer my clerk the Warden’s house at the Mint, in the Tower of London, with all the benefits that do pertain to living there.”

“That is very generous, sir,” said I, beginning to grin like an idiot. For this was more than I could ever have expected. Since leaving Gray’s Inn I had taken lodgings in King Street, Westminster, but these were poor quarters and my heart leaped at the thought of a whole house to myself, especially one within the liberties of the Tower, for there a man might avoid taxation altogether.

“Upon my arrival at the Mint last April, I lived there for a while myself before coming here to Jermyn Street, in August. The truth is the Mint is mighty noisy, having the rolling mills going all night, and after the peace and tranquillity of Cambridge, I could not bear with it. But you are a young fellow and it has been my experience that the young have a stronger toleration of noise than their elders. Besides, I have great expectation that my niece will come to live with me in December, and the Mint is a dirty, unwholesome place, with many roguish fellows and where the air is ill, so that I am confirmed not to live there. Come, sir, what do you say? It is a good little house, with a garden.”

A whole house, with a garden. This was too much. And yet still I was moved to ask for more. I have mentioned how I had begun to feel the weight of my own ignorance; and it suddenly occurred to me that there was something in Newton’s demeanour and conducting of himself that made me believe that I could learn much from him. And I thought to make a condition of it. For I was possessed of the notion that to know the mind of such a man who had penetrated so many scientific and philosophical mysteries would be to know the mind of God. Which would make a change from the minds of whores and gamesters.

“Aye, sir,” said I. “I will work for you. But on one condition.”

“Name it, Mister Ellis.”

“That you will always correct my ignorance of something, for I know you are a learned man. I would wish that you will show me something of the world as you understand it, and to discourse with me on the nature of things in furtherance of my own self-improvement. For I must confess that a university degree got me an understanding of the classics and Sanderson’s Logic and not much else. I will work for you, sir. But what in me is dark, I would ask you to illumine. And what is low and base, I would that you might raise and support.”

“Well said, sir. It takes an intelligent man to admit his ignorance, especially one with a university degree. But be warned. I was never much of a tutor. In all my time at Cambridge, Trinity College assigned but three fellow commoners to my tuition, and those I took for the fees rather than some desire to be the centre of a modern Lyceum. It is hard for any of us to know how we may appear to the world, but, in truth, I consider myself to have learned only as much as to confirm how little of the world I know. I’ve a mind that it’s this which vexes those rabbinical parts I might possess. But I agree to your condition. I know not what but I’ll trepan something into that young head of yours. So, give me your hand on the bargain.”

I took Newton’s cold thin hand in my own and indeed, I did kiss it, for it now belonged to the master to whom I owed some return of my fortune and prospects.

“Thank you, sir,” I said. “I will endeavour to do my best for you.”

“I shall write to the Treasury today,” said Newton. “They will have to sanction your appointment. But I do not doubt that they will approve my choice. After which you will have to take an oath to keep secret Mister Blondeau’s method of edge-marking the coin, although I think it can be no great secret since, I am told, the same machine is shown openly to visitors in the Paris Mint.

“But first let’s have some cider, after which I’ll write that letter and then we’ll take my coach to the Tower where I’ll swear you in and show you around the Mint.”

And so I was employed at the Royal Mint.