The morning was, until now, peaceful as it could ever be. His employer, an eclectic woman like many in this city, tended to fill her study with noisrmakers: ticking clocks and whirring gizmos, but Julian's study held books. Tomes upon tomes of the greatest works collected before Grimsworth's submersion, bound in leather or hardback, as well as a few new books penned by the city's finest authors. And yes, he considered himself among that number,  despite the fact that writing fiction was not classified as a great enough scientific study to pay the bills by itself, and so between novels, he worked for Bell.

It just so happened that he was currently several years between novels with no ideas for a follow-up. Completely unrelated fact.

And so, when the door to his quiet study crashed open with a shout that the Archangel Michael himself would be jealous of, the scratching of his pen across the page, blotting out the name of the person who was to be receiving the bill he was writing, did not fill him with the same level of excitement that Charlie showed. Julian stared at the ruined page a moment before setting the pen down gently. "Was it a circus elephant juggling an Encyclopedia Brittanica? Oh, I suppose you're right; I shall never guess. Please enlighten me."