At some point Fatio had to tear those eyes away from Eliza and begin the same sort of dance- cum -duel with Waterhouse. Again, if Fatio had been a Fellow of the Royal Society, or a Doctor at some university, Waterhouse would have had some idea what to make of him; as it was, Fatio had to conjure his credentials and bona fides out of thin air, as it were, by dropping names and scattering references to books he'd read, problems he'd solved, inflated reputations he had punctured, experiments he had performed, creatures he had seen. 'I had half expected to see Mr. Enoch Root here,' he said at one point, looking about, 'for a (ahem) gentleman of my acquaintance here, an amateur of (ahem) chymical studies, has shared with me a rumor – only a rumor, mind you – that a man owning Root's description was observed, the other day, debarking from a canal-ship from Brussels.' As Fatio stretched this patch of news thinner and thinner, he flinched his huge eyes several times at Waterhouse. Certain French nobles would have winked or stroked their moustaches interestedly; Waterhouse offered up nothing but a basilisk-stare.