On the way back he gave himself stern warnings not to place any reliance on these wonderful plans for Future Usefulness and Happiness, but he could not help indulging in ideal pictures of teaching the young men and of their extraordinary progress; of Jonathan Strange coming to visit the school; of his pupils being delighted to discover that their master was a friend and intimate of the most famous magician of the Modern Age; of Strange saying to him, “It is all excellent, Segundus. I could not be better pleased. Well done!”

It was after midnight when he got home, and it took all his resolve not to run to Mr Honeyfoot’s house immediately to tell them the news. But the following morning when he arrived at the house at a very early hour, their raptures were scarcely to be described. They were full of the happiness he had hardly dare allow himself to feel. Mrs Honeyfoot still had a great deal of the schoolgirl in her and she caught up her husband’s hands and danced around the breakfast-table with him as the only possible means of expressing what she felt. Then she took Mr Segundus’s hands and danced around the table with him, and when both magicians protested against any more dancing, she continued by herself. Mr Segundus’s only regret (and it was a very slight one) was that Mr and Mrs Honeyfoot did not feel the surprize of the thing quite as he intended they should; their opinion of him was so high that they found nothing particularly remarkable in great ladies wishing to establish schools solely for his benefit.

“She may consider herself very lucky to have found you!” declared Mr Honeyfoot. “For who is better fitted to direct a school for magicians? No one!”

“And after all,” reasoned Mrs Honeyfoot, “what else has she to do with her money? Poor, childless lady!”

Mr Honeyfoot was convinced that Mr Segundus’s fortune was now made. His sanguine temper would not permit him to expect less. Yet he had not lived so long in the world without acquiring some sober habits of business and he told Mr Segundus that they would make some inquiries about Mrs Lennox, who she was and whether she was as rich as she seemed.

They wrote to a friend of Mr Honeyfoot’s who lived in Bath. Fortunately Mrs Lennox was well known as a great lady, even in Bath, a city beloved by the rich and the elevated. She had been born rich and married an even richer husband. This husband had died young and not much regretted, leaving her at liberty to indulge her active temperament and clever mind. She had increased her fortune with good investments and careful management of her lands and estates. She was famed for her bold, decisive temper, her many charitable activities and the warmth of her friendship. She had houses in every part of the kingdom, but resided chiefly at Bath with Mrs Blake.

Meanwhile Mrs Lennox had been asking the same sort of questions about Mr Segundus, and she must have been pleased with the answers because she soon invited him up to Bath where every detail of the projected school was quickly decided.