“I understand. Don't exert yourself. It is hardly to be expected that one forced out of the occult could come among us with his faculties unimpaired. We have had many communications with your world, and have always been frustrated by this one gulf which may not be crossed. When real thought gets across the border, it is often indefinite, sometimes mere drivel. Such answers as come from the void are usually disappointing, no matter how expert our mediums may be in communicating with the dead.”
“The dead! Did you say—the dead?”
“Certainly; the dead. Are you not of the dead?”
Watson shook his head emphatically.
“Absolutely not! Not where I came from. We are all very much alive!”
The other watched him curiously, his great eyes glowing with enthusiasm; the enthusiasm of the born seeker of the truth.
“You don't mean,” he asked, “that you have the same passions that we have here in life?”
“I mean,” said Watson, “that we hate, love, swear; we are good and we are evil; and we play games and go fishing.”
Geos rubbed his hands in a dignified sort of glee. What had been said coincided, apparently, with another of his pet theories.
“It is splendid,” he exulted, “splendid! And just in line with my thesis. You shall tell it before the Council of the Rhamdas. It will be the greatest day since the speaking of the Jarados!”