SO TO THE F UN F AIR – indistinguishable (to Jack) from a hospital for the possessed and deformed and profoundly lost: contortionists, rope-walkers, fire-eaters, foreigners, and mystical personalities, a few of whom Jack recognized from Vagabond-camps here and there. They knew the Doctor from his clothing and his wig, about which they'd been warned. He was trying to initiate a philosophickal dispute with a Chinese fortune-teller, the subject of the debate being a diagram on a book-page consisting of a stack of six short horizontal lines, some of which were continuous ( – ) and others interrupted (––) The Doctor was trying various languages out on the Chinese man, who only looked more aggrieved and dignified by the moment. Dignity was a clever weapon to use against the Doctor, who did not have very much of it at the moment. On his head was the largest wig Jack had ever seen, a thunderhead of black curls enveloping and dwarfing his head and making him look, from behind, as if a yearling bear-cub had dropped from a tree onto his shoulders and was trying to wrench his head off. His attire was no less formidable. Now, during the long winter, Jack had learned that a dress had more parts, technical zargon, and operating procedures associated with it than a flintlock. The Doctor's outfit mocked any dress: between Leipzig and his skin there had to be two dozen layers of fabric belonging to Christ knew how many separate garments: shirts, waistcoats, vests, and things of which Jack did not know the names. Rank upon rank of heavy, close-spaced buttons, containing, in the aggregate, enough brass to cast a swivel-gun. Straps and draw-strings, lace gushing from the openings around throat and wrists. But the lace needed washing, the wig needed professional maintenance, and the Doctor himself was not, at root, a good-looking man. And despite the attire, Jack ended up suspecting he was not a vain one; he was dressed that way to a purpose. In particular, perhaps, to make himself seem older – when he turned around at the sound of Eliza's voice, it was evident he was no more than about forty years old.