"But no matter how you stretch it, the beginning and the end are the same, are they not?" Isaac continued. "At the beginning you fall into the seemingly harmless practice of weighing guineas, and culling out those that are infinitesimally heavier. At the end you have been thoroughly compromised by Jack the Coiner. He has placed his agents in your company—he owns you so completely that he can even place an Infernal Device in your luggage-wagon, in the hope of assassinating the Master of the Mint at the Royal Society."