"Jesus, By God, Cassius, you look stupider than a capon in a henhouse. If I remember rightly from that high-bucking month you and I grappled with two hundred years ago when I was younger and less beautiful than I am now, you bathe, if you bathe, on Fridays. Otherwise, you and water are barely on nodding acquaintance. This is a Wednesday."

"Ah, my dear, the barge she sat in like a gilded --"

"Don't Cleopatra me, Cassius, you did it once, and I worked it off. What in hell is going on?"

"There is a tide in the affairs of --"

She picked up an oar, and threatened him with a solid whacking. He concentrated his mind.

"Truth to tell, it was designed, somewhat histrionically, to save a Miss Montesquieu, who was moments from a silent death. It was the only distraction I could think of at the moment that would move her forward out of the circle of shadows, and also, and more importantly, allow me to disappear. However, I miscalculated the speed of the current, and as I was about to be sucked into the paddlewheel, rather than circle the ship and enter it from another direction, I had to set out for your vessel."
Mary snuffed. "You were never much good at indirection, Cassius, at least not in real life."

He sighed, not unlike Henry IV, Part I at the realization that he would never reach Jerusalem. "All true, all true, but we are left with the one continuing puzzle -- once again, the agents of the Red Heron are holding back from obliterating us all. But why? Why? When so much is at stake, or (and a new thought occurred to him) could it be that ---?