§ 2
The first to be called was a young man of Leytonstone named Godley, a young man with a large and excessively grave grey face and a deliberation of utterance amounting to an impediment. He was carrying a microscope in a wooden box. He was a student of biology with a cytological bias; naturally very polite and temperamentally disposed to be precise and deliberate in all he said and did. He was making his way from Liverpool Street station to the Birkbeck Institute by a circuitous route because he had nearly an hour in hand before his class began. He stood poised on the pavement edge at a street-corner waiting for two vans to pass, when his call came to him.
He found a very earnest, barefaced little man beside him whose blue eyes searched his countenance swiftly, and who then gripped his arm.
“I think,” said Sargon, “that it is you.”
Mr. Godley, who was not without a sense of humour, attempted to reply that it certainly was him, but that impediment of his, partly natural but greatly developed by affectation, arrested him about the word “certainly,” and he was still sawing the air with his profile when Sargon spoke again.
“I have need of your help,” said Sargon. “The great task is beginning.”
Mr. Godley went through the preliminary convulsions of explaining that he had the better part of an hour to spare and that he was willing to give help in any reasonable matter provided it was first explained to him clearly just exactly what the matter was. But he could only give help for a limited time. His engagement with his class at the Birkbeck was imperative. Sargon paid little heed to the significance of the various sounds that Mr. Godley was biting off and swallowing. He led his captive by the arm and explained, with helpful gestures of his free hand, the full significance of this call. “You are, I perceive, a young man of scientific qualifications. They will be needed. I do not know if you recognize me—your memory may still be imperfect—but I recall your face, chief among the wise men of our ancient court. Yes, indeed, chief among our wise men.”
“N-no-no-not as-as-assure that I follow you aw-ow-ow quite,” said the young man. “My my—my aw-ow-ow-work issferr’ll aw-ow-ow-known as yet.”
“I know it,” said Sargon boldly. “I know it. I have been seeking you. Do not be deceived by my plain incognito. Believe me I have tremendous powers behind me. In a little while all men will understand. The age of confusion draws near its end; a new age begins. We are the first two particles, the very first, in a great crystallization——”
“Where aaare we g-g-g-oing agg-aggs-aggs-exactly?” asked the young man.