Synopsis : After the successfuly staged riot, everything appears to be going well for Mark at Belbury. At least untill Fairy Hardcastle confronts him in the afternoon. She informs Mark that he has insulted Wither by turning down his offer to bring Jane over to the institute. This has Mark depressed about not being in the confidence of the Inner Circle. But Filostrato comes to Mark's rescue. He invites Mark up to his sitting room where he clues Mark in about the Head. At first Mark assumes that Filostrato is talking about Jules Frost being Belbury's head. Filostrato, along with some help from Reverend Straik, then gets dramatic to explain exactly what he means. They decide to introduce Mark to the Head that very night.
Mark feels so at ease with his place at Belbury that he can look down upon fellow institute members such as Steele and Cosser because of their cluelessness. He even regards Lord Feverstone as a man of passing usefullness. This leads up to his insulting the DD by not taking up his suggestion that he invite Jane to live at Belbury. Mark does not like this suggestion because he knows that practical minded Jane would expose all his ambitious new "friends" as the phonies they really are. So Mark refuses Wither's accomidation outright. One of the terms Mark uses to describe Jane's opinion of the inner circle is "toad-eating". The term comes form the seventeeth century when quack doctors would have an assitant eat, or at least pretend to eat what was thought to be a poisonous toad. The charletan would then "cure" him with the elixer he had for sale. This is where the term "toady" comes from as well. Marks failure to take Wither's offer turns his situation around for the worse.