Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon Page A

bearing all the weight of Leadership, which crusheth a man even as it bloateth his Pride— Aye, miraculous,— perhaps with some luck you'll come to know the Relief indescribable of shedding that Load, dumping months, even years, of accumulated Resentment in one great—
    "Eeh, if tha don't mind?"
    "Oh. Oh, of course, I hadn't realiz'd. 'Tis but our uninhibited Earthi-ness, we of lower degree, we're forever speaking of shit, you see, without much— Damme, I say, I said 'shit,' didn't I?— Oh, shit, I've said it again,— No! Twice!" Smacking himself repeatedly upon the Dome.
    "Be easy, Mason, it's all right."
    "You'll report me now."
    "Be happy to, if I thought anyone would believe it...?"
    "Wouldn't want you getting into any trouble," Mason unable to refrain from adding, "- - Spanish Inquisitors or whatever—"
    "Indulge me, Sir, that word again was...?"
    "Oh, for Heav'n's sake, 'Authorities,' if you like, if that's not too sectarian for you."
    "I am not a fucking Jesuit, Mason. If Jesuits are manipulating me, then are we two Punches in a Droll-booth, Friend,— for as certainly would it be the East India Company who keep thee ever in Motion."
    "Ah,— and how is that, exactly?"
    "Someday, someone will ask, How did a baker's son get to be Assistant to the Astronomer Royal? How'd a Geordie Land-Surveyor get to be his Second on the most coveted Star-gazing Assignment of the Century? Happen 'twas my looks...? thy charm...? Or are we being us'd, by Forces invisible even to thy Invisible College?"
    "Whatever my Station," bristling, "I have earn'd it. Tho' frankly, I have wonder'd about you. A collier's son,— a land-sale collier at that,— surely there's more wealth and respect in sea-coal?"
    "Aye, and we're Quakers as well, is there a Nervus Probandi about someplace?"
    "Merely have I gone on puzzling,— as, without influence, nothing may come of a Life, and however briskly you may belabor me with Mr. Peach,— yet who, I ask myself thro' the Watch when Sleep comes not, may it have been, between mouthfuls of 'Sandwich,' as the spotted Cubes went a-dancing, who dropp'd the decisive word about you? Don't tell me Emerson, or Christopher Le Maire."
    "Why, 'twas John Bird...? Thought ev'ryone knew thah'. As Mr. Bird's Representative in the Field,— my duty's to tend the Sector,— pray nothing goes too much amiss, requiring me to fix it...? Eeh! I'm the Sector Wallah!"
    Mason's response is a Reverse Squint,— each Eye, that is, doing the opposite of what it usually does when he peers thro' a Telescope. Dixon finds it, briefly, disorienting. Mason even seems to be trying to smile in apology. "The Arts of leadership in me how wanting, as all alas must know,
      I bear this command only thanks to a snarl'd and soil'd web of favors, sales, and purchases I pray you may ever remain innocent of. You are right not to accept my Command,— well, not all the time, as I may hope,—
    "Am I giving that impression, I'm sure I didn't mean to...?"
    "You're the mystery, Dixon, not I. I'm but a Pepper-corn in the Stuffata, stirr'd and push'd about by any Fool who walks by with a Spoon, entirely theirs,— no mystery about any of them, dubious set of Cooks tho' they be, nough' but the same old Criminals, some dating back to Walpole. But your lot, now,— well, they're a different sort, aren't they?"
    "Recall last year, Ingenuous,— Clive's in London by the first of August. By the eleventh of September,— that is, the next thing anyone knows,— the Assignments are chang'd, with thee no longer his brother-in-law's second, rather leading a Team of thy own, replaced by an unknown Quantity. What am I to make of this? We scarcely know Maske-lyne. Who is Robert Waddington, anyway?"
    "One of the Lunarian Stalwarts, teaching the Mathematicks out near the Monument someplace, Intimate, indeed Housemate, of one of the Piggotts, those eminent advocates of taking the Longitude by Lunar Culminations."
    "Maskelyne's sort of Lad...?"
    (As Maskelyne will later