"Yes indeed, I have had a stiff back ever since I left Venice a few weeks ago. How on earth did you know?" I asked slightly confused. "Your walk was uneven just now when you walked from the stairs to the chair and you were leaning with your right arm, since there was not enough support from your back", Leng said calmly. "Follow me please", he added quietly. What was I to do? Part of me was curious as to what Leng was hinting at and part of me wanted to be left alone, especially the part of my anatomy that was stiff and painful. At the door the old barber turned around, "it will only take a moment I assure you", he said. The man had performed stranger feats and having him examine my back did not seem totally out of his list of skills. Slowly I followed him outside, grabbing a cane one of our customers had left. Our small voyage to Mr. Leng's attic apartment felt all the more bizarre since the old man could not see and was leading me without the assistance of a cane and navigated the distance without hesitation. A case of the blind leading the cripple. We entered the house of Ms. Grub the seamstress and fabric shop owner. Ms. Grub was at this time repairing some table lace and looked up from her work through thick half-glasses. "Good to see you Jeremy, you're looking good this morning", she said as if I had not been gone for weeks and if my physical condition had not changed since the last time we met. "Come by later for some tea and scones if you like!", she shouted after me as I made my way up the long narrow staircase towards Leng's plateau as we call the old man's abode.

Higher than an attic, but less so than a loft, is how the space appears to newcomers. With carefully placed bibelots and furniture the main room exudes a radiant warmth, no matter what time of year. That was not to say that the place is cluttered, nothing of the sort. In fact it always feels as if there is a specific design embedded in the carefully placed objects. From the ceiling tapestries of unusual length came down to create the spires of a fabric cathedral. Those draperies can be used to configure the room in any number of ways and it had occurred more than once that people who were ordinarily familiar with the place would find themselves lost. Parts of the floor are slightly raised and some are even lowered, giving the entire space the appearance of an odd landscape. It is my guess that Mr. Leng used these ridges and plateaus for navigation, but they do add to the mysterious atmosphere of the place. Seating arrangements are always improvised depending on who is visiting and for what purpose. If Leng suspects there will be long conversation, he will bring out extremely large pillows on which a London gentleman in proper attire can not sit elegantly and only with great difficulty, but comfortably. Women are treated in a completely different manner and are provided with chairs complimentary to their dress and standing, always making them look more elegant than they naturally are. Leng's assumption being that men can not be elegant no matter what situation and might as well look ridiculous. How the old man figures out what a woman is wearing is beyond me, but he always manages to complement his female guest's attire perfectly. Where the old man keeps all of these chairs and pillows and benches and cushions is difficult to say. Everything seems to fold away into some unseen location.

Out of nowhere Leng produced a table, which he folded open so fast that it seemed as if the object appeared out of thin air. "Please lie faced down on the table", he said not in my direction and slightly commanding. "There will be no need to take off any item of clothing", he continued as if he had guessed what I wanted to ask. I did as I was told and crawled onto the table, which seemed sturdier than I had imagined. Nothing happened. In fact nothing happened for quite some time. There was shuffling somewhere at the far end of the room but when that ceased after a minute there remained utter silence. How Leng manages to keep London outside of his home is a miracle. After this much time lying still on a table, I felt rather ridiculous and started to look around. "Please stay still", said Leng from somewhere close to me. "Please, place your hands next to you on the table, palms facing up", he said. I did as I was told. With one easy move he managed to take off my clerk's jacket, how he did this I have no idea and I never found out. "Please relax, I will first put you in a receptive mode. Closely follow my instructions." Why was it necessary to be in a 'receptive' mode and what did that mean by that? Even though he had taken off my jacket there was no actual sensation of touch thus far. All of a sudden there was a slight prod at the top of my neck, barely noticeable. Next his fingers slowly seemed to tap each of the vertebrae one at a time. There was no pushing or force applied, just a little tap. He stopped somewhere around my waist and now touched the insides of my palm with what felt like his index finger, both at the same time. "Do you feel both of your hands equally well?" Leng asked. "Yes I do", I replied. "That is good, very good", the voice came from further away. "I'm going to repeat the same procedure, but now I want you to keep focusing on the inside of your palms", the voice was close by again.

The same pattern was repeated but this time the tapping was a bit colder and a bit faster. Again it ended with a simultaneous tap on both my palms. "Can you smell anything?" I was asked. When asked that question it occurred to me that ever since I arrived back home I had not smelled any subtle fragrances, only strong and obvious ones, such as the old dusty books in Hubbard's library and the coffee Helen poured for breakfast. I felt Leng putting his hand under my forehead, slightly lifting up my head. He then pulled a latch somewhere and the front part folded into the table, revealing a soft stand of dark red velour that allowed my head to be in alignment with the rest of my body without any discomfort. Only my forehead and chin were resting on this curious construction. Leng said: "I'm going to do the same thing I did with your back but with your head" It took quite a while before this actually happened and I slowly felt myself drifting into sleep when I felt Leng's index finger slightly pressing my left ear inwards. He let go slowly and repeated the same with my right ear. "Can you feel your cheeks? Are they warm?" What an odd question, are my cheeks warm? "Not warmer than normal" was my answer. In total this procedure was repeated three times, each time the exact same sensation and each time Leng asked if my cheeks were warm. Not that I was loosing my patience, if this was all he was going to do, he could keep on going for a while, the entire experience was quite relaxing.

There again was the finger on my left ear, slightly colder now and again only on the lobe. The same happened to my right ear, except that when asked if my cheeks were warm I had to admit to my astonishment that they were indeed. Not hot, not a fever, but slightly warmer as if sitting in front of a fireplace after coming in from the cold on an early December morning. "Excellent, we are making progress", Leng murmured from somewhere in the room. He placed both of his hands on my shoulders, holding them flat he did not push he just kept them there, very steady and then suddenly removed them. Again he put his hands over my shoulder blades and kept them there for a minute. Twice more was this ritual repeated. After what seemed to be much longer than the previous intervals I felt two cold shapes on my shoulders, just a bit heavier than the sensation of Mr. Leng's hands simply touching. "Does that feel comfortable?" the old man asked. "Quite so", I replied, but for some reason lacking the desire to ask what exactly was placed on my body. "You're doing quite well, much more receptive than most", Leng said. The man now placed two fingers in between my shoulders on each side of my spine. "Can you feel this Jeremy?" I heard. "Yes I can", I said, although I now wonder if I had said it in any understandable form because by this time I felt very groggy. The next sensation was as if Leng picked up the fabric of my shirt with the fingers of his hands in both the places he had just tapped. He slightly tugged as if to command my body to levitate from the table. "No need to move now, don't fight the sensations", Leng almost whispered. "Imagine that all of your muscles are tensing around these two points and nowhere else." Leng picked up the two points of fabric from my back. He held this position for half a minute or so. "Imagine that these are the two points around which all of your back, neck, head and legs revolve." The two points were moved slowly towards each other. "Your back hinges on these two points." As if wires pulled through the points I felt all the muscles in my back tense around Leng's two focal points. A slow upward motion made it feel as if my body was dragged into a single point above me. "Hold here", came a commanding voice. "Now let go", seconds afterwards. The imaginary cords were slowly released and my entire body started to spread out over the table. In unison with my back lowering itself Leng must have removed the weights from my shoulders, such that it felt as if they flew away by themselves. "Slow", Leng whispered, "Very slow. Is your back feeling warm?" As I was still lowering my back I clearly felt a warming sensation start from where there were previously the two pulling points, a sensation that slowly spread all over. "Lower still", said Leng.  My body obeyed and with a noiseless sigh did my back straightened out completely. There were a quick few taps at my ears, a few over my back along my spine and a couple in the palms of my hands. "Sleep now", I heard Leng say from very far away.

When I came round I smelled the strong fragrance of fresh tea. "Ah you are awake, how do you feel? You can get up now", Leng said cheerfully. I expected to have to use my hands to raise myself off of the platform, but there was none of the stiffness now that I was accustomed to for the last couple of weeks. With ease I slid of the table and put on my jacket. "Here, have a seat and have some tea", I saw the old man say with a smile on his face. In silence I drank some tea, sitting cross legged on one of Leng's oversized pillows. "Can I ask exactly what you did?" I asked. "I did nothing, you did it all by yourself. I just helped your mind see that there was nothing wrong with your body." Out of all the answers I imagined, this one made absolutely no sense. A slight curiousness now grabbed me and I wondered exactly what the old man had done. Over by the table in a wooden tray lay a number of very long thin metal needles with colorful handles. My curiousness turned to nervousness and I checked my back and ears for any damage. Leng laughed, "It is not what you think, nothing bad happened to you, if that is what you were wondering. Your entire nervous system was telling your back that they had only one position to be in: stiffly bent forward. This probably happened because you slept a lot in objects other than beds, am I right?" "Indeed I have been traveling much, with not many places that contained proper sleeping arrangements. Most of the time I slept in carriages and cabs", I admitted. "You're body assumed it was going to maintain that lifestyle for a prolonged period of time and prepared itself accordingly", the old man said sipping his tea. "Then exactly why did you stick those needles over there in my body?", I said. "Those are acupuncture needles and I only placed them on your body slightly under the skin, a technique that has been used in my country for thousands of years. You place a needle at the juncture of a specific bundle of nerves, that way you can either activate or deactivate those nerves  and control if they allow sensations to pass to the brain. First I disabled a number of pathways along your back and neck by carefully placing those needles. This took away any noise from the rest of your body that might disturb your concentration. Then it was simply of a question of focusing all of your muscles on one point and asking you to let go. Your body did the rest and assumed its normal form", Leng concluded. "What were those weights on my shoulders and what were they for?" I asked still not entirely satisfied. "Those were simple copper weights, they enhanced the sensation of sinking when you finally let go." More and more questions came to me rapidly. "Why did I not feel the needles go in?" I asked. "Again this was suggestion. Although they are so thin you would not have felt them anyway, I wanted to completely remove the chance of you noticing anything out of the ordinary. You felt me tap your back, your hands and your ears. This created a pattern of expectation and when I placed a needle your body already had a picture of what was happening. It could simply not tell the difference. It also helps me to find the precise nerve bundles of course", mister Leng said. "But enough explanations. Time to go home, it is getting late."

With many questions still to be answered I walked back to Hubbard's store. Olivia was busy in the greenhouse talking to Smollet. As I stood there staring at the wildlife I heard a sound I had not heard from this part of the house before. The trapdoor leading to Bibliotheca Echidna opened slowly and I heard someone walk up and enter the store. Only when the door closed again could I see Hubbard standing in the hallway looking at me. With an expressionless face he said: "Welcome back Jeremy, I'm sure you have a lot of questions."