So when Childermass told his master, “Go to London. Go now,” Mr Norrell believed him.

“The only thing I do not quite like,” said Mr Norrell, “is your plan to have Segundus write to one of the London newspapers upon our behalf. He is certain to make errors in what he writes – have you thought of that? I dare say he will try his hand at interpretation. These third-rate scholars can never resist putting in something of themselves. He will make guesses – wrong guesses – at the sorts of magic I employed at York. Surely there is enough confusion surrounding magic without our adding to it. Must we make use of Segundus?”

Childermass bent his dark gaze upon his master and his even darker smile, and replied that he believed they must. “I wonder, sir,” he said, “if you have lately heard of a naval gentleman of the name of Baines?”

“I believe I know the man you mean,” said Mr Norrell.

“Ah!” said Childermass. “And how did you come to hear of him?”

A short silence.

“Well then,” said Mr Norrell reluctantly, “I suppose that I have seen Captain Baines’s name in one of the newspapers.”

“Lieutenant Hector Baines served on The King of the North, a frigate,” said Childermass. “At twenty-one years of age he lost a leg and two or three fingers in an action in the West Indies. In the same battle the Captain of The King of the North and many of the seamen died. Reports that Lieutenant Baines continued to command the ship and issue orders to his crew while the ship’s doctor was actually sawing at his leg are, I dare say, a good deal exaggerated, but he certainly brought a fearfully damaged ship out of the Indies, attacked a Spanish ship full of bounty, gained a fortune and came home a hero. He jilted the young lady to whom he was engaged and married another. This, sir, is the Captain’s history as it appeared in The Morning Post. And now I shall tell you what followed. Baines is a northerner like you, sir, a man of obscure birth with no great friends to make life easy for him. Shortly after his marriage he and his bride went to London to stay at the house of some friends in Seacoal-lane, and while they were there they were visited by people of all ranks and stations. They ate their dinner at viscountesses’ tables, were toasted by Members of Parliament, and all that influence and patronage can do for Captain Baines was promised to him. This success, sir, I attribute to the general approbation and esteem which the report in the newspaper gained for him. But perhaps you have friends in London who will perform the same services for you without troubling the editors of the newspapers?”

“You know very well that I do not,” said Mr Norrell impatiently.

In the meantime, Mr Segundus laboured very long over his letter and it grieved him that he could not be more warm in his praise of Mr Norrell. It seemed to him that the readers of the London newspaper would expect him to say something of Mr Norrell’s personal virtues and would wonder why he did not.