“But what has Mr Norrell or Mr Norrell’s desires to do with me? I did not sign the agreement. You should know that I am not alone in this undertaking. I have friends now.”

“That is true,” said Childermass, mildly amused. “And Mrs Lennox is a very rich woman, and an excellent woman for business. But does she have the friendship of every Minister in the Cabinet like Mr Norrell? Does she have his influence? Remember the Society of Learned Magicians, Mr Segundus! Remember how he crushed them!”

Childermass waited a moment and then, since the conversation appeared to be at an end, he strode off in the direction of the stables.

Five minutes later he reappeared on a big, brown horse. Mr Segundus was standing, just as before, with his arms crossed, glaring at the paving-stones.

Childermass looked down at him. “I am sorry it ends like this, sir. Yet, surely all is not lost? This house is just as suited to another kind of school as it is for a magical one. You would not think it to look at me, but I am a very fine fellow with a wide acquaintance among great people. Chuse some other sort of school and the next time I hear that a lord or lady has need of such an establishment for their little lordlings, I will send them your way.”

“I do not want another kind of school!” said Mr Segundus, peevishly.

Childermass smiled his sideways smile and rode away.

Mr Segundus travelled to Bath and informed his patroness of their dismal situation. She was full of indignation that some gentleman she had never even met should presume to instruct her in what she could and could not do. She wrote Mr Norrell an angry letter. She got no reply, but her bankers, lawyers and partners in other business ventures suddenly found themselves in receipt of odd letters from great people of their acquaintance, all complaining in an oblique fashion of Mr Segundus’s school. One of the bankers – an argumentative and obdurate old person – was unwise enough to wonder publicly (in the lobby of the House of Commons) what a school for magicians in Yorkshire could possibly have to do with him. The result was that several ladies and gentlemen – friends of Mr Norrell – withdrew their patronage from his bank.

In Mrs Honeyfoot’s drawing-room in York a few evenings later Mr Segundus sat with his head in his hands, lamenting. “It is as if some evil fortune is determined to torment me, holding out great prizes in front of me, only to snatch them away again.”

Mrs Honeyfoot clucked sympathetically, patted his shoulder and offered the same damning censure of Mr Norrell with which she had consoled both Mr Segundus and Mr Honeyfoot for the past nine years: to wit, that Mr Norrell seemed a very odd gentleman, full of queer fancies, and that she would never understand him.

“Why not write to Mr Strange?” said Mr Honeyfoot, suddenly. “He will know what to do!”