Daniel had recovered from the strange absence of mind that had troubled him during the Queen’s address to Parliament. He was fully engaged in the moment. It must have had something to do with that here he could drink chocolate. Moreover, he could move about, talk to people, and attend to what he found interesting. Until Isaac hushed the place by walking in, this had been the spectacle of Roger—holding court at his favorite table—receiving the thanks, in the form of bad poetry, and the congratulations, in the form of expensive gifts, of Great Britain, one Briton at a time. Because this was the Kit-Cat Clubb, all of these encomia had to be delivered in verse: pithy epigrams if Roger were lucky, rambling trains of heroic couplets otherwise. One of the formal constraints observed in the Kit-Cat school of doggerel was that no one could be referred to by name. Classical allusions were de rigueur . Roger was almost always Vulcan.