Queerly – or perhaps not – the only solace for most Londoners was going to the theatre, where they could sit together in darkness and watch their own behavior reflected back to them. Once More into the Breeches had become very popular since its Trinity College debut. It had to be performed in Roger Comstock's theatre after its first and second homes were set on fire owing to lapses in judgment on the part of the pyrotechnicians. Daniel's job was to simulate lightning-flashes, thunderbolts, and the accidental detonation of Lord Brimstone without burning down Roger's investment. He invented a new thunder-engine, consisting of a cannonball rolling down a Spiral of Archimedes in a wooden barrel, and he abused his privileges at the world's leading alchemical research facility to formulate a new variant of gunpowder that made more flash and less bang. The pyrotechnics lasted for a few minutes, at the beginning of the play. The rest of the time he got to sit backstage and watch Tess, who always dazzled him like a fistful of flash-powder going off right in the face, and made his heart feel like a dented cannonball tumbling down an endless hollow Screw. King Charles came frequently to watch his Nellie sing her pretty songs, and so Daniel took some comfort – or amusement at least – in knowing that he and the King both endured this endless Wait in the same way: gazing at the cheeks of pretty girls.