“It’s good to see you, Dick,” he declared, “like coming back to the primitive forces of nature, unchanged, unchanging. The sight of you’s enough to stop a revolution.”
“You’re feeling like that, are you?” his friend answered, his eyes fixed upon Macheson’s face. “Yes, I see you are. Go ahead! Or will you smoke first?”
Macheson produced his pipe, and his host a great tin of honeydew. Macheson helped himself slowly. He seemed to be trying to gain time.
“Blessed compact, ours,” the giant remarked, leaning back in his chair. “No probing for confidences, no silly questions. Out with it!”
“I’ve started wrong,” Macheson said. “I’ll have to go back on my tracks a bit anyway.”
Holderness grunted affably.
“Nothing like mistakes,” he remarked. “Best discipline in the world.”
“I started on a theory,” Macheson continued thoughtfully. “It didn’t pan out. The people I have been trying to get at are better left alone.”
“Exactly why?” Holderness asked.
“I’ll tell you,” Macheson answered. “You know I’ve seen a bit of what we call village life. Their standard isn’t high enough, of course. Things come too easily, their noses are too close to the ground. They are moderately sober, moderately industrious, but the sameness of life is at work all the time. It makes machines of the factory hands, animals of the country folk. I knew that before I started. I thought I could lift their heads a little. It’s too big a task for me, Dick.”