I watched the Frenchman crawl between the ichie and plesie to get round to the plesie’s front paddle I gestured with my head “Did he see it?” “Not in London, but when we went to Birmingham from Oxford, we stopped en route at Stowe House, where the Duke of Buckingham has taken it.” Mr Lyell, though polite as a gentleman ought to be, made a little face “It is a splendid specimen, but rather swamped by the Duke’s extensive collection of glittering objects.” I paused, my hand on the ichie’s jaw So this poor specimen would go to a rich man’s house, to be ignored amongst all the silver and gold I could have wept “So is he—” I nodded at Monsieur Prévost “—going to tell Monsieur Cuvier that the plesiosaurus isn’t a fake? That it really does have a small head and a long neck and I weren’t just putting two animals together?” Monsieur Prévost glanced up from his study of the plesie with a keen look that made me think he understood more English than he spoke Mr Lyell smiled at me “There is no need, Miss Anning Baron Cuvier is fully convinced of the specimen, even without Monsieur Prévost having seen it He has had a great deal of correspondence about the plesiosaurus with various of your champions: Reverend Buckland, Conybeare, Mr Johnson, Mr Cumberland —” “I wouldn’t call them my champions exactly,” I muttered “They like me when they need something.” “They have a great deal of respect for you, Miss Anning,” Charles Lyell countered “Well.” I was not going to argue with him about what the men thought of me I had work to do I begun scraping again Constant Prévost got to his feet, dusted off his knees and spoke to Mr Lyell “Monsieur Prévost would like to know if you have a buyer for the plesiosaurus,” he explained “If not, he would like to purchase it for the museum in Paris.” I dropped my blade and sat back on my heels “For Cuvier? Monsieur Cuvier wants one of my plesies?” I looked so astonished that both men begun to laugh It took Mam no time to bring me down from the cloud I was floating on “What do Frenchmen pay for curies?” she wanted to know the minute the men had left to dine at the Three Cups and she could leave the table outside “Are they looser with their purse strings or do they want it even cheaper than an Englishman?” “I don’t know, Mam—we didn’t talk figures,” I lied I would find a better time to tell her I were so taken with the Frenchman that I’d agreed to sell it to