I think I said I was glad to be of any service to him, and he turned away.
Immediately the train of thought that our conversation had suggested must
have resumed its sway. His arms began to wave in their former fashion.
The faint echo of "zuzzoo" came back to me on the breeze....
Well, after all, that was not my affair....
He came the next day, and again the next day after that, and delivered
two lectures on physics to our mutual satisfaction. He talked with an
air of being extremely lucid about the "ether" and "tubes of force," and
"gravitational potential," and things like that, and I sat in my other
folding-chair and said, "Yes," "Go on," "I follow you," to keep him
going. It was tremendously difficult stuff, but I do not think he ever
suspected how much I did not understand him. There were moments when I
doubted whether I was well employed, but at any rate I was resting from
that confounded play. Now and then things gleamed on me clearly for a
space, only to vanish just when I thought I had hold of them. Sometimes my
attention failed altogether, and I would give it up and sit and stare at
him, wondering whether, after all, it would not be better to use him as a
central figure in a good farce and let all this other stuff slide. And
then, perhaps, I would catch on again for a bit.
At the earliest opportunity I went to see his house. It was large and
carelessly furnished; there were no servants other than his three
assistants, and his dietary and private life were characterised by a
philosophical simplicity.
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