"I'll send for Mr. Stoendyck. He's upstairs inventing. You can't think how clever he is and how hard he works. It's really wonderful! We often leave him alone for hours to think things out, and sometimes he plays sonatas; he says it refreshes him. He really is an extraordinary man."
Mr. Stoendyck came in, looking very martial and scientific and pleased with himself, as though he had just invented gunpowder. Mrs. Campbell began as usual to talk baby language, and play a kind of Dumb Crambo at him. He never seemed able to guess the word.
"I hope we haven't interrupted you in your studies," said Val politely.
"She say she ope she not interrupt. Work, you know. Oeuvre—Arbeit."
"I was just amusing myself with the very witty paper from Germany, Kladderadatsch. It is very funny," he said.
"It sounds funny," said Val sympathetically.
"What I find in England is that you're all wonderfully serious, wonderfully courteous, wonderfully kind"—he bowed to his hostess; "but, you'll excuse my saying so, I don't find enough wit or lightness for my temperament. For humour I have to go to Belgium or Germany."
He spoke with intense solemnity.
Mrs. Campbell now began to translate him even to himself.
"You say you like fun, wit—just fun to make laugh?" She made strange signs with her fingers.