Two-Legs sat long and pondered with his head in his hands. His disciple waited in silence; and, at last, Two-Legs looked up:
“You know ... you know ...” he said and then was silent again for a while.
Then he said:
“You know ... sometimes I don’t believe at all that the spirit lives in any of the places that you say.”
“Where does he live then, Father Two-Legs?” asked his disciple.
“I believe he lives in the air,” said Two-Legs. “Not in the clouds, which are mere water and vapour, but in the pure air ... in the ether: the ether, do you understand? He lives there and goes now into one and now into the other and rather into the one than into the other. Do you remember how long we had to rub the glass before the spirit came? He was there reluctantly. Do you remember that, when the glass was wet, he did not come at all? He would sooner be in the water. He likes to dwell in iron and copper and zinc and silver and all the other metals. In the string that held the kite which we sent up into the thunder-cloud, he ran down as fast as the lightning and sent a spark into my finger. You know how he runs down the wire of the lightning-conductor into the ground. He remains there because the ground is moist. That is why you and I see no more of him, because we walk on the ground: he runs right through us into the ground and disappears. Yes, that’s how it is, that’s how it is!”
His eyes beamed. He could not explain it, but he saw, as in a vision, that this was how it must be. He went on talking about it; and his disciple knew that it was true, even though he could not understand it.
But then Two-Legs grew sad again:
“What is the use of it all, when I cannot even produce the spirit,” he said, “nor build him a house in which he would rather dwell than anywhere else in the world, so that I may always have plenty of him to come and go at my pleasure?”
He began to gaze at his magnetic needle: how two north ends or two south ends always repelled each other, while a north end and a south end immediately flew together.