"The same thing," he grumbled, "over and over again. Always the same stupidity. Listen, you! Do you realize how long it took man to get out of the caves? The long slow painful creep of progress, for millennia, before he ever made that first step from the cave?"
"I have no idea," I told him.
"I'll tell you this," he said belligerently. "A lot longer than it took for him to turn around and go right back into the cave again." He started pacing the floor, waving the gun around in an agitated fashion as he talked. "Is this the natural life of man? It is not. Is this even a desirable life for man? It is definitely not." He spun back to face me, pointing the gun at me again, but this time he pointed it as though it were a finger, not a gun. "Listen, you," he snapped. "Man was progressing. For all his stupidities and excesses, he was growing up. His dreams were getting bigger and grander and better all the time. He was planning to tackle space! The moon first, and then the planets, and finally the stars. The whole universe was out there, waiting to be plucked like an apple from a tank. And Man was reaching out for it." He glared as though daring me to doubt it.
I decided that this man was doubly dangerous. Not only was he a spy, he was also a lunatic. So I had two reasons for humoring him. I nodded politely.
"So what happened?" he demanded, and immediately answered himself. "I'll tell you what happened! Just as he was about to make that first giant step, Man got a hotfoot. That's all it was, just a little hotfoot. So what did Man do? I'll tell you what he did. He turned around and he ran all the way back to the cave he started from, his tail between his legs. That's what he did!"
To say that all of this was incomprehensible would be an extreme understatement. I fulfilled my obligation to this insane dialogue by saying, "Here's your coffee."
"Put it on the table," he said, switching instantly from raving maniac to watchful spy.
I put it on the table. He drank deep, then carried the cup across the room and sat down in my favorite chair. He studied me narrowly, and suddenly said, "What did they tell you I was? A spy?"
"Of course," I said.