Excerpt from Golden Hill by Francis Spufford, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Service!"

Heads turned, but mildly, slowly; not—he judged—with that quickness that betokens an interest in a drama resumed at its exciting mid-point. Not as if they were expecting Act Two of The Wrong'd Traveller, in which Simon Simple (an ingénu from the country) loses his all to a sharper, and must throw himself upon the dubious mercy of Sir Bartholomew Quorum (a lawyer) and Mrs. Spurt (a bawd). It seemed only the slow stir with which any coffee-house registers an unknown come among regulars; fresh supply of another talking head, loud or wise or foolish as the case may be, to be recruited into the great plural organism of the room, which now and again loses a body or gains a body, as people arrive and depart, but talks on, talks on.

"Yessir?" A boy had bustled up in a white apron. "Tea, coffee or chocolate, sir?"

"A pot of the dark Mahometan, no cow juice."

"Yessir. Victuals?"

"Basket o' white tommy."

"Yessir. News-paper, sir?"

"What do you have?"

"Post-Boy, Intelligencer or Monitor, sir."

"All three, then."

"Yessir. In a moment, sir. May have to wait for the Post-Boy, sir. Only one copy in this morning, and it's with those gentlemen over there." —A youngish pair, one bearded and one in horn-rimmed spectacles, laughing over by the window.

"Just the others, then," said Smith. "No need to bother 'em."

The rolls came, smelling of the oven, and the coffee in a pewter pot that London would have called ten years behind the fashion, its sides were so straight and its handle so lacking in decorative folderol. The boy whirled the breakfast in on one tray while he kept two more balanced up his arm; shifted, uncrooked his neck to release the folded pages he'd clamped against his shoulder with his chin; laid them before Smith; spun onward into the next figure of his coffee-house dance. Smith found his appetite returning. He inhaled the rising savours of basket and pot as if they were friends whose shoulders he could throw his arms around, and fell to his meal, munching and buttering, licking crumbs from his fingers while he propped the papers against the pot, and the clatter of plates and speech and the guggling liquid made their familiar music, played continuo.

When he had ate his fill, and proceeded from the urgent first cup and necessary second to the voluntary third which might be toyed with at leisure, without any particular outcry seeming to suggest he should be on his guard, he leant back, spread the city's news before him, and, by glances between the items, took a longer survey of the room. Session of the Common Council. Vinegars, Malts, and Spirituous Liquors, Available on Best Terms. Had he been on familiar ground, he would have been able to tell at a glance what particular group of citizens in the great empire of coffee this house aspired to serve: whether it was the place for poetry or gluttony, philosophy or marine insurance, the Indies trade or the meat-porters' burial club. Ships Landing. Ships Departed. Long Island Estate of Mr. De Kyper, with Standing Timber, to be Sold at Auction. But the prints on the yellowed walls were a mixture. Some maps, some satires, some ballads, some bawdy, alongside the inevitable picture of the King: pop-eyed George reigning over a lukewarm graphical gruel, neither one thing nor t'other. Albany Letter, Relating to the Behaviour of the Mohawks. Sermon, Upon the Dedication of the Monument to the Late Revd. Vesey. Leases to be Let: Bouwerij, Out Ward, Environs of Rutgers' Farm. And the company? River Cargos Landed. Escaped Negro Wench: Reward Offered. —All he could glean was an impression generally businesslike, perhaps intersown with law. Dramatic Rendition of the Classics, to be Performed by the Celebrated Mrs. Tomlinson. Poem, "Hail Liberty, Sweet Succor of a Briton's Breast," Offered by "Urbanus" on the Occasion of His Majesty's Birthday. Over there there were maps on the table, and a contract a-signing; and a ring of men in merchants' buff-and-grey quizzing one in advocate's black-and-bands. But some of the clients had the wind-scoured countenance of mariners, and some were boys joshing one another. Proceedings of the Court of Judicature of the Province of New-York. Poor Law Assessment. Carriage Rates. Principal Goods at Mart, Prices Current. Here he pulled out a printed paper of his own from an inner pocket, and made comparison of certain figures, running his left and right forefingers down the columns together. Telescopes and Spy-Glasses Ground. Regimental Orders. Dinner of the Hungarian Club. Perhaps there were simply too few temples here to coffee, for them to specialise as he was used.

Excerpted from Golden Hill by Francis Spufford. Copyright © 2017 by Francis Spufford. Excerpted by permission of Scribner. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.