"Two days?" I asked. "I know I was tired and hadn't slept for quite some time when I arrived back home, but two days was quite a lot to be unconscious." With Helen now acknowledging that I was not a meandering ghost but very much my old self, she became less nervous and more of our maid. "You better come get some breakfast, Hubbard has been asking about you. And take of those filthy clothes please. Where on earth did you get those?" she said strongly, now briskly walking away towards the kitchen. It is futility itself arguing with urchins and Russian maids and I did as I was told. My old clerk's livery was an uncomfortable change of attire from well worn traveling clothes, with the only benefit that I must have lost a considerable amount of weight and the costume now fell around me as if I had just put on a fabric harness. The mirror on the wall above the small basin showed a face with a darker skin and more facial hair than I had ever had. A shave took care of the stubble but did nothing for the weathered skin. As far as I could I straightened my back and made my way towards the kitchen in the forward part of the upstairs living quarters. I found a table set for one with a cup of hot steaming coffee and an English breakfast. Clearly my stomach had forgotten what it was used to every morning because now matter how tasteful the sausage, it felt heavy in my stomach and I could not eat as much as I normally did. Helen noticed of course. "Jeremy, what did they do to you over there on the continent? You look all scrawny and worn out and you've barely eaten anything", she said, sounding very much like the Helen I had left behind. "Not to worry, I'm sure all that will change soon, you'll see", I replied.

Thus far I had not seen Hubbard. Nor did I care to meet him just yet. The man had shown a callous side of him I had not expected, something which greatly confused me. He had grabbed the item I had sought out for him with great danger to myself and he had rushed downstairs into Bibliotheca Echidna without a word of explanation or thanks. Helen had not seen him much either for the last two days and the man had virtually been swallowed into ground for all we knew. "He will be back and he will apologize, you will see", Helen said, trying to turn around my anger. "You know what he is like, whenever he gets something in his head he has to see it through. It is like a fever that has to run its course", she added, "Remember the Triops?" I did remember that. His constant absence both in mind and body from the dinner table and the workshop to spent time peering at ugly creatures in a fish tank had disrupted the household greatly. At first I felt a great need to become familiar again with the interior of the house. Whatever the world outside looked like would have to wait. Almost minutely I went through the abode, re-acquainting myself with the objects, the layout, the colors, the smells and the dimensions. Never before had I realized how much the inside of my home had made an impact on me. Traveling rapidly from city to city, from temporary accommodations to even more temporary sleeping quarters had created a need for a permanence and I was very glad to find that back in Fleet Street.

Almost at once did I start to notice small sensations that had never before entered my consciousness. The specific color of the wood paneling, very dark in contrast to the bleached stone texture of Mediterranean houses, the smell of polishing wax, something I would normally loathe. Still the subdued colors and dark red wood did not appear at all depressing my spirits, instead they gave a warm and comfortable feeling to the place. Similar sensations entered my mind when walking into the library, books still in the same disorder as I had left them. Old paper combined with Morocco leather creates a penetrating smell, not to dissimilar to pipe tobacco, something I had never realized before until then. When I entered the shop downstairs, it was clear that not much had been sold. Clocks and watches had been taken in but had not been picked up. Some of the clocks had simply been placed on the counter by their owners and were not even examined or labeled, something that ordinarily happens before they are moved into the workshop. Three of these clocks would be very difficult to place unless their owners came to claim them. One rather ostentatious mantle clock could be immediately identified as belonging to Mrs. Clapham, a lady with absolutely no taste and a fixation with the reign of Louis XV. Cleaning the store and organizing the merchandize gave me a way to work myself back into the creeks and crevices of the house. Never before had I been an overzealous cleaner of spaces, but having trundled so much mud and muck, it was quite a nice change to be able to actually clean something a bit more permanent than perhaps scrubbing my boots for the next day. Helen had stayed out of the store area. "All them clocks and watches, that's not for a maid to cope with. Let Hubbard himself sort it out", she stated resolutely.

Hubbard himself was nowhere to be seen. His workplace the same chaos as before, with no signs as to when the last time was he had occupied it. Inevitably I reached the vivarium, or greenhouse, built against the house in the backyard. Not to confuse this construction with a regular greenhouse, the complex, for it should be called that, was of an enormous scale and housed a small section of tropical rainforest. Not just plants were kept here but the typical animal life was appropriately transplanted into the artificial counterpart. It was as if God had sliced a quarter of forest out of the jungle and planted it right in our backyard. When I entered the hot enclosure I was greeted by a new sound, a loud shrieking of a bird with an English cold. Encountering this noise within an actual forest must be an immense sensation since the volume produced by this bird was incredibly loud and would certainly echo for miles. "It's a Toucan bird or a Ram...   a Rampa ... Ramphastidae", a small voice came from behind me. I spun around and saw Olivia staring at me. "Its name is Smollet, like the newspaper man around the corner. He sounds just like him", she said in one breath. "Olivia! good to see you again", I cried out. The little girl ran towards me and wrapped her arms around my waist. "You're back you are!" she shouted. "Indeed I am and I won't go away anymore", I said, wondering if I could indeed make that promise. "Now how did you know that Latin name for that bird", I asked. "Mister Hubbard gave me a book with pictures, he said I should like to study onitoligy, that's about birds you know", Olivia said, now slowly letting go of me. "You mean Ornithology probably", I said.  Not wanting to crush the little girl's newly found interest I quickly added: "that's very impressive that you know that bird's Latin name." Olivia nodded. "Smollet is very clever. I'll show you." Olivia walked up to a small plant and picked a bright red piece of fruit. She then entered the central opening in the forest and intently gazed upwards. "Look", Olivia said and tossed the piece straight up into the trees. Out of the leafs came a large bright yellow beak that snapped up the piece of fruit from the air with a loud clack. Olivia clapped her hands. "Smollet's very good, he almost always catches it.

"Come", she said,  "there's more new animals." She took my hand and dragged me towards the left side of the enclosure where a small set of stairs descend into a viewing area from which you can observe the contents of a small stream that runs across the vivarium. "Look", Olivia said, "do you see the little snakes over there?" On the floor bed, curiously examined by some Discus fish roaming the bottom for food, were three yellow and brown striped elongated fish or eels no more than a couple of inches in length. "They look like they have moustaches", Olivia giggled. Indeed upon closer inspection the tiny eel like fish appeared to sniff around with short bristles at the end of their snout, constantly prodding the stream's sandy floor bed, occasionally shooting away from larger fish getting too close for comfort. "They are funny, they do that all day. Sometimes they mistake one of the bigger fish for food and they tickle them. Those big ones get really angry when that happens", Olivia said. "I'm sure", I said, "I'm sure that itches for a while." "Mister Hubbard told me that the little eels don't really come from the same place as the other fishes, but he says that they should be ok. I've been watching them so they don't get sick", Olivia said. We sat there for a while gazing at the abundance of life in front of us. Little fish inevitably got themselves into scuffles with other small fish, which for a short while created a cloud of spurious activity, ending in an explosion of life towards all ends of the stream. "Ah there you two are." Helen walked down towards the bench we were sitting on. "Did you show you him the fish with the moustaches?" Olivia nodded with a smile. "They are very funny animals", I said, "a bit like underwater dogs" "Good thing I found you here Jeremy, Mr. Leng is upstairs to see you, he says he can help", Helen said. "Help me?" I asked, "help me with what?" "He didn't say, he just said he could help you." Not wanting to leave the bench I reluctantly stood up and went upstairs to see what Mr. Leng had to say.