steam baths also offer their delights. During the stroll, which the city’s most important gentlemen engage in as a nightly ritual, one may encounter friends and potential friends, acquaintances and associates, competitors and enemies, newcomers and ladies of a certain charm. Milton and Shakespeare are quoted, Latin and Greek flow like wine. The latest political gambit, gossip, and rumors are mulled over, interpreted, and adjudged. Business deals are discussed, negotiated, and consummated. No one cusses, guffaws, or tells lewd stories. Not along the Cocktail Route, sir.
Daniel notices a flit of shadows behind them, and Zhu whirls around, anxiety stitching her brow beneath the brim of her fedora.
“Boo how doy?” she whispers.
He surveys the street. A couple of thugs are roaming about, nobody he knows. No hatchet men, either.
“By God, why are you so skittish? What business have you with hatchet men?”
“None,” she says, but continues to glance about anxiously.
“If you say so.” He heartily disapproves of her propensity to dissemble. “We’ll start at the Reception. Always good for the first visit.”
Daniel eagerly sweeps through the grand mahogany doors of the Reception Saloon. The dark, high-ceilinged burrow is splendidly lit by gaslights in crystal candelabra. Liquor bottles banked before vast mirrors behind the bar glow like rubies, emeralds, sapphires, and topaz. Fastidious bartenders in white jackets attend to one’s every need. They’ll hold a gentleman’s gold and other valuables behind the bar for the evening, ensuring he won’t lose his kit and caboodle to the pickpockets who roam these streets, the thugs, or a light-fingered sporting gal. The black-and white-marble floor gleams like a giant checkerboard. Polished brass spittoons stand between each brass and leather bar stool. Daniel sniffs. The air is thick and rich with cooking smells. Among the delightful odors wafts the delicate fragrance of the Reception’s specialty, Maryland terrapin.
The bartender raises on eyebrow at Zhu, and Daniel says, “He’s my manservant.” He orders a Sazarac—rye whiskey, a dash of bitters, and a dash of absinthe shaken with ice and served in a glass rubbed with anisette. Father would die at the expense of four bits, but Daniel adores Sazaracs. “My just reward,” he tells Zhu. “I’m celebrating the entertainment of a creative thought I had this morning.”
“What creative thought is that?” Zhu says in a lowered voice, hunching her shoulders, and concealing her delicate woman’s hands in her long sleeves. Very good. She’s quite a clever creature, he must admit.
“There’s a scientific theory called the persistence of vision.”
“Oh, right. The principle behind how our perceptual apparatus works. Led to the technology of movies.”
“Movies?” What an odd word!
“Yep. But of course, insects and other creatures have evolved other perceptual means. Just goes to show you, that old cosmicist homily is so true. ‘What you see is what you are.’”
“What on earth are you jabbering about?” he demands.
“Never mind. Sorry, Daniel, I interrupted you. What was your creative thought?”
The director of the Pacific Title Insurance Company huddles over bourbon with the president of Bankers Investment Company. Daniel should join them. New financing is just what he needs to refurbish that blight of a boardinghouse, perhaps develop those weeds in the Western Addition, too. He can practically hear Father’s stern scolding voice. “Go on, Daniel. He who hesitates is lost, sir.”
But Daniel does hesitate. Why can’t he linger with his new mistress discussing the persistence of vision? Movies? What does she mean? Why can’t he ever do what he wants to do?
The bartender brings his Sazarac, and he knocks it back. Ah, finally a sharp feeling against which he can rebel—shirking family duties, carousing with a degenerate woman, guilt. Better and better. To hell with new financing. He’ll see about new financing some other day.
“I dreamed up a device,” he says, “a machine, a gadget. I envisioned how the seven phases of action of magic lantern shows and Herschel’s spinning coin and the painted parrot flapping in a Zoetrope could be made into something brand-new. A device that could make the mermaid in the painting swim across a whole wall as if she were reality itself!”
“I’m quite sure it’s possible,” Zhu says seriously. Not laughing at him.
“You are?” At her vigorous nod, “I’m sure, too. The trick is to keep the sequence continuous with a mechanical device. Perhaps a miniature steam engine?”
“A steam engine?” Now she laughs.
“Why not?”
She shrugs. “Invent this device, then.”
“I intend to!” He raises his empty glass. “To my moving picture machine! I want some lunch. Come help me with my plates.”
Zhu dutifully follows him to the tremendous