David smiled. ‘It’s a long story,’ he said lazily. ‘The pressgang snatched me from my home at Newport and I was pressed on board a man-of-war – big it was, frightening for a country lad. I jumped ship as soon as I could, Portugal actually, Lisbon, and lived rough for a while. Then I joined a travelling show of contortionists. I didn’t have the body for that, but they put me at the bottom of the heap and I could hold the rest of them up. Then I saw an act up high on Roman Rings and I set my heart on it.’ He twirled his moustache. ‘It made me,’ he said simply. ‘I apprenticed myself to the man I saw doing it, and he taught me. Then we used a trapeze instead of the rings which meant we could swing out and not just hang like other performers were doing. First I was the only one. But then his young son started to learn and we found he could swing out and reach for me, and I could catch him and swing him back to his trapeze. It was a good act.’

He paused. I saw his eyes narrow with grief at some memory. I felt my belly clench with fear.

‘What happened?’ I asked.

‘The lad fell,’ he said simply. ‘He fell and broke his neck and died.’

Nobody said anything for a moment.

‘Merry, you’re green,’ Jack said. ‘Are you going to be sick?’

I shook my head. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Go on, David. What did you do then?’

‘I came back to this country and found a partner to help me with the rigging and to stand the other side and reach out and catch my feet as I swung over. But your father is the man with the ideas! I’d never have thought of putting lasses up high. The people will love it.’

‘He’ll be paying you a good sum,’ Dandy said acutely. ‘You’re the only man in England who can swing on a trapeze. Yet you’re teaching us. And you say yourself that girls will pull a crowd.’

David beamed. ‘I’m getting old,’ he said frankly. ‘I get tired after two shows and my partner is getting slow. I’ve no savings, nothing at all. Robert is paying me a king’s ransom to teach you three something that I’ll have no use for in two seasons’ time. And he’ll pay me more yet – to refuse to teach other people the tricks I’ve taught you.’ He grinned at Jack and moistened his fingers with his tongue so that he could curl the ends of his moustache. ‘That’s no secret,’ he said. ‘Your father knows it as well as I do.’

Jack nodded. ‘How long do you last on the trapeze?’ he asked.