Roger Vaile did more for Jeremy than provide him with food and lodging. He was also at the pains of finding out the wisest man he knew to answer Jeremy’s questions and resolve his doubts. After a lengthy meal of huge and crudely spiced dishes they returned to Roger’s own room, an apartment a little larger than that in which Jeremy had found himself, but not much less bare; and there they discovered, sitting on the bed and waiting for them, an elderly priest in a long black soutane, with a golden crucifix at his breast.
He rose as they entered, and surveyed Jeremy with intense curiosity. Jeremy returned the stare, but rather less intently. This, he found with little interest, was like any priest of any age. He was clean shaven and almost bald, with pouched and drooping cheeks, and a chin that multiplied and returned to unity as he talked and moved his head. But above these signs of age were two large and childlike blue eyes which shone on Jeremy with something like greed in their eagerness.
“This is the man,” Roger said briefly to the priest, and to Jeremy he said: “This is my Uncle, Father Henry Dean. He is writing the chronicle of the Speakers, and he knows more about the old times than any other man alive.”
The priest took Jeremy’s hand in a soft clasp without relaxing his eager stare. “There are few men alive who are older than I am,” he murmured, “but you are one of them, if my nephew has told me the truth. Yes—more than a century older.”
“I don’t feel it,” Jeremy answered aimlessly.
“No? No. That is miraculous. Ah, yes, I believe your story. I know well that the world is full of marvels. Who should know that better than I who have spent so many years searching the wonderful past? And there were greater marvels in those days than now. Young man——” he stopped and chuckled with a touch of senility. “Young man, you will be nearly two centuries old.”
Jeremy nodded without speaking.
“Yes, yes,” the old man went on, “so many strange things happened in those days that we have no call to be amazed at you. Why, there used to be a machine in those times that the doctors used to look right through men’s bodies.”
Jeremy started slightly. “You mean the Röntgen Rays?” he said.
“A wonderful light,” said the old man eagerly, “you know it, you have seen it?”