Excerpt from Golden Hill by Francis Spufford, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

The pair by the window were coming over, still laughing, the one in the spectacles bearing the missing Post-Boy. He had a remarkably smooth, white, oval countenance, on which the dark circles of the horn frames made, somehow, a most neatly comic appearance. His hair was the stubble of one who usually wears a wig but is off duty.

"Here you are," said the stranger, tilting a curious look at Smith. "No trouble, we've finished with it. You are welcome, sir, to all the slender pleasure it may give you." His voice was fastidiously educated and amused. "May I ask—did I just hear you say, 'No cow juice?'?"

"It was in the nature of an experiment," said Smith. "I am newcome, and last night I drew a blank with a London word I thought was plain to all the world. So I made the venture of a little coffee cant today, just to see—"

"Oh, you'll have no luck with Quentin there, for he's fluent in every English in which a cupful can be ordered, let alone Dutch, and most other tongues a sailor may bring through the door. French, Spanish, Danish, Portuguese. Latin, if all else fails. Nonne, Quentinianus?" he said, as the boy passed by, deep in trays.

"Sic, magister," said Quentin, gliding on.

"Will you join me?" Smith asked.

"If you're sure we don't intrude—" But they were already pulling chairs around, and waving two fingers at Quentin.

"Septimus Oakeshott," said the smooth, pale one.

"Hendrick Van Loon," said the other, pronouncing it with so little Dutch guttural, that Mr. Smith took a moment to find the surname in it. Front of an army; name of a wading bird.

"Richard—" he began.

"Oh, we know," said Septimus Oakeshott. "I'm afraid that everyone knows, Mr. Smith. You are celebrated before you open your mouth. You are the very rich boy who won't answer questions."

"Well..."

"Unless, by chance," put in Van Loon, "you do answer them?"

"Hendrick's interest is professional," said Septimus, his comical eyebrows raised high on the blank egg of his forehead. "He actually writes for the Post-Boy."

"Not wholly professional," said Van Loon. "My family has dealings with Gregory Lovell, so we are... intrigued... that you've come, Mr. Smith. But it's true that you're news. And our friend Septimus here is plying his trade as well, in case you were wondering"—paying Oakeshott smartly back—"for he is Secretary to the Governor, and we suspect him of keeping his ears wide open while he sits here in the Merchants."

"The Merchants?"

"As opposed to the Exchange Coffee-House, back that way on Broad Street," said Septimus, pointing a white finger at the wall. "The coffee is better here, and the conversation."

They both gazed hopefully at Smith. He, understanding that he was in the presence of the two powers of Press and Government, albeit their junior versions, gave his most guileless smile.

"I'm afraid I am exactly as advertised," he said.

"How unusual," said Septimus. "Exactly as advertised?"

"Yes."

"What, in every detail?"

"Yes."

"A perfect fit with legend?"

"Mm-hm."

Septimus waited, his face exhibiting the glazed patience of a porcelain owl, to see if there was more; but there was not, for Mr. Smith was as patient as he. More coffee arrived, and the silence lengthened between the two ingenuous faces, with Van Loon glancing amused from one to the other, as if spectating at chess; and it was Septimus who spoke first, resuming the vein of his chatter as if no time had passed at all.

"Then you must be a marvel of nature," he said, "quite remote from the usual run of mortals. For I am not as advertised, and he is not"—indicating Van Loon. "You could make a little grammar of it. I am not, you are not, he or she or it is not as advertised. Speaking for myself, I rise in the morning, and it takes all the effort of which I am capable—the thought of my pious father the rector, and my six virtuous sisters—to stuff the billowing sackful of whim-whams, impulses and contradictions back behind my face, and turn myself out for the day as a plausible secretary again."

Excerpted from Golden Hill by Francis Spufford. Copyright © 2017 by Francis Spufford. Excerpted by permission of Scribner. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.