William Gibson - The Difference Engine

A female servant in mobcap and apron showed Mallory in. Disraeli was awake and eating his breakfast, strong black coffee and a stinking platter of mackerel fried in gin. He wore slippers, a Turkish robe, and a tasseled velvet fez. "Morning, Mallory. Dreadful morning. Beastly."

"It is, rather."

Disraeli crammed the last of his mackerel into his mouth and began to stuff the first pipe of the day. "Actually, you're just the fellow I need to see today, Mallory. Bit of a clacker, technical expert?"

"Oh?"

"New damned thing, I bought it just last Wednesday. The shopman swore it would make life easier." Disraeli led the way into his office, a room reminiscent of Mr. Wakefield's office in the Central Statistics Bureau, though far less ambitious in scale, and littered with pipe-dottles, lurid magazines, and half-eaten sandwiches. The floor was crowded with carved blocks of cork and heaps of shredded excelsior.

Mallory saw that Disraeli had bought himself a Colt & Maxwell Typing Engine, and had managed to haul the thing out of its packing-crate and set it upright on its curved iron legs. It squatted on the stained oak boards before a patent office-chair.

"Looks all right," Mallory said. "What is the problem?"

"Well, I can pump the treadle, and I can manage the handles well enough," Disraeli said. "I can get the little needle to move to the letters I want. But nothing comes out."

Mallory opened the side of the casing, deftly threaded the perforated tape through its gearing-spools, then checked the loading-chute for the fan-fold paper. Disraeli had failed to engage the sprockets properly. Mallory sat in the office-chair, foot-pumped the typer up to speed, and grasped the crank-handles. "What shall I write? Dictate something."

" 'Knowledge is power,' " Disraeli said readily.

Mallory cranked the needle back and forth through its glass-dialed alphabet. Perforated tape inched out, winding neatly onto its spring-loaded spool, and the rotating printing-wheel made a reassuring popping racket. Mallory let the flywheel die down and ratcheted the first sheet of paper out of its slot. KNOWLEDGEE IS PPOWER, it said.

"Takes a dab hand," Mallory said, handing the page to the journalist. "But you'll get used to it."

"I can scribble faster than this!" Disraeli complained. "And in a better hand, by far!"

"Yes," Mallory said patiently, "but you can't reload the tape; bit of scissors and glue, you can loop your punch-tape through and the machine spits out page after page, so long as you push the treadle. As many copies as you like."

"Charming," Disraeli said.

"And of course you can revise what you've written. Simple matter of clipping and pasting the tape."

"Professionals never revise," Disraeli said sourly. "And suppose I want to write something elegant and long-winded. Something such as…" Disraeli waved his smoldering pipe. " 'There are tumults of the mind, when, like the great convulsions of Nature, all seems anarchy and returning chaos; yet often, in those moments of vast disturbance, as in the strife of Nature itself, some new principle of order, or some new impulse of conduct, develops itself, and controls, and regulates, and brings to an harmonious consequence, passions and elements which seem only to threaten despair and subversion.' "

"That's rather good," Mallory said.

"Like it? From your new chapter. But how am I to concentrate on eloquence while I'm pushing and cranking like a washer-woman?"

"Well, if you make some mistake, you can always reprint a new page fresh from the tape."

"They claimed this device would save me paper!"

"You might hire a skilled secretary, and dictate."

"They said it would save me money, as well!" Disraeli puffed at the amber tip of his long-stemmed meerschaum. "I suppose it can't be helped. The publishers will force the innovation on us. Already the Evening Telegraph is setting up entirely with Engines. Quite a to-do about it in Government. The typesetting brotherhoods, you know. But enough shoptalk, Mallory. To work, eh? I'm afraid we must hasten. I should like to take notes for at least two chapters today."

"Why?"

"I'm leaving London for the Continent, with a group of friends," Disraeli said. "Switzerland, we think. Some little cantonment high in the Alps where a few jolly scribes can draw a breath of fresh air."

"It is rather bad outside," Mallory said. "Very ominous weather."

"It's the talk of every salon," Disraeli told him, seating himself at his desk. He began to hunt through cubbyholes for his sheaf of notes. "London always stinks in summer, but they're calling this 'The Great Stink.' All the gentry have their travels planned, or are gone already! There shall scarcely be a fashionable soul left in London. They say Parliament itself will flee upstream to Hampton Court, and the Law Courts to Oxford!"

"What, truly?"

"Oh yes. Dire measures are in the works. All planned sub rosa of course, to prevent mob panic." Disraeli turned in his chair and winked. "But measures are coming, you may depend upon that."

"What sort of measures, Dizzy?"

"Rationing water, shutting off smokestacks and gaslights, that sort of thing," Disraeli said airily. "One may say what one likes about the institution of merit-lordship. But at least it has guaranteed that the leadership of our country is not stupid."

Disraeli spread his notes across the desk. "The Government have highly scientific contingency plans, you know. Your invasions, your fires, your droughts and plagues…" He leafed through the notes, licking his thumb. "Some people dote on contemplating disasters."

Mallory found this gossip difficult to believe. "What exactly is contained in these 'contingency plans'?"

"All sorts of things. Evacuation plans, I suppose."

"Surely you're not implying that Government intend to evacuate London."

Disraeli smiled wickedly. "If you smelled the Thames outside Parliament, you wouldn't wonder that our solons want to bolt."

"That bad, eh?"

"The Thames is a putrid, disease-ridden tidal sewer!" Disraeli proclaimed. "Thickened with ingredients from breweries, gas-works, and chemical and mineral factories! Putrid matter hangs like vile seaweed from the pilings of Westminster Bridge, and every passing steamer chums up a feculent eddy that nearly overwhelms her crew with foetor!"

Mallory smiled. "Wrote an editorial about it, did we?"

"For the Morning Clarion…" Disraeli shrugged. "I admit my rhetoric is somewhat over-colored. But it has been a damned odd summer, and that's the truth. A few days of good soaking rain, to flush out the Thames and break these odd stifling clouds, and all will be well with us. But much more of this freak weather, and those who are elderly, or weak of lung, may suffer greatly."

"You think so, truly?"

Disraeli lowered his voice. "They say the cholera is loose again in Limehouse."

Mallory felt a dreadful chill. "Who says it?"

"Dame Rumour. But who will doubt her in these circumstances? In such a vile summer, it's all too likely that effluvia and foetor will spread a deadly contagion." Disraeli emptied his pipe and began re-loading it from a rubber-sealed humidor stuffed with black Turkish shag. "I dearly love this city, Mallory, but there are times when discretion must outweigh devotion. You have family in Sussex, I know. If I were you, I should leave at once, and join them."

"But I have a speech to deliver. In two days. On the Brontosaurus. With kinotrope accompaniment!"

"Cancel the speech," Disraeli said, fussing with a repeating-match. "Postpone it."

"I cannot. It is to be a great occasion, a great professional and popular event!"

"Mallory, there shan't be anyone to see it. No one who matters, anyway. You'll be wasting your breath."

"There shall be working-men," Mallory said stubbornly. "The humbler classes can't afford to leave London."