Not so, Doctor?”

“Without question.”

“Well, if you gentlemen insist,” returned Osborne, with a gesture of resignation.

Maloney had already brought her.

“Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,” she proclaimed, and sat herself down with the smile of someone confident of having contributed her share of witty conversation. Given that it was still summer, I smiled dutifully at the remark. Osborne made no such effort.

“Cheer up, young fella,” the girl said to him, raising her glass; and she sang a little song conveying the same basic idea.

“I’ll do whatever I can,” Osborne solemnly declared.

This Osborne is an idiot, I said to myself. The girl was simply stunning, in the innocent, rosy-cheeked way which, together with the manly British character, is the finest ornament of these islands.

She certainly enlivened me, and she listened in respectful silence to my fumbling compliments—not something Englishmen lavish on their women. With us, if we are even slightly drawn to a woman, we tell her we adore her. An Englishman hopelessly in love will merely observe: “I say, I do rather like you”.

“Come away with me to the Continent,” I urged her in my rapture, stroking her bare arm. “You should live in Fontainebleau and glide three times a day up the crescent staircase of Francis I, trailing your gown behind you. The moment they set eyes on you, the three-hundred-year old carp in the lake will find they are warm-blooded after all. Miss France herself will panic and give birth to twins.”

“You’re a very sweet boy, and you’ve got such an interesting accent. But I don’t understand a word you’re saying.”

This cut me to the quick. I am very proud of my English pronunciation. But what could a Connemara lass know of these things?—she spoke some dreadful Irish brogue herself. I left her to amuse herself with Osborne while Maloney and I made serious inroads on the whisky.

By now Maloney was looking, and sounding, rather tipsy.

“Doctor, you’re a hoot. We certainly hit the jackpot when we met. But this Osborne … I’d be so happy if Pat could seduce him. These English aren’t human. Now we Irish … back home in Connemara, at his age I’d already had three sorts of venereal disease. But tell me, dear Doctor, now that we’re such good friends, what’s the real reason for your visit to Llanvygan?”

“The Earl of Gwynedd invited me to pursue my studies in his library.”

“Studies? But you’re already a doctor! Or is there some exam even higher than that? You’re an amazingly clever man.”

“It’s not for an exam … just for the pleasure of it. Some things really interest me.”

“Which you’re going to study there?”

“Exactly.

“And what exactly are you going to study?”

“Most probably the history of the Rosicrucians, with particular reference to Robert Fludd.”

“Who are these Rosicrucians?”

“Rosicrucians? Hm. Have you ever heard of the Freemasons?”

“Yes. People who meet in secret … and I’ve no idea what they get up to.”

“That’s it. The Rosicrucians were different from the Freemasons in that they met in even greater secrecy, and people knew even less about what they did.”

“Fine. But surely you at least know what they did in these meetings?”

“I can tell you in confidence, but you must reveal it to no one.”

“I’ll harness my tongue. Now, out with it!”

“They made gold.”

“Great. I knew all along it was a hoax. What else were they making?”

“Come a bit closer. Homunculi.”

“What’s that?”

“Human beings.”

Maloney roared with laughter and slapped me on the back.

“I’ve always known you were a dirty dog,” he said.

“Idiot. Not that way. They wanted to create human beings scientifically.”

“So, they were impotent.”

We were both thoroughly tipsy, and found the idea hilarious in the extreme.