“You suffer from limitations, Mr. Hartz.” The fall of the soft syllables had a music beyond anything the Colossus had ever heard.
“We all do, don’t we?” he answered, with a first gruff approach to geniality.
“Yes, but some in a greater, some in a less, degree.”
“True.”
“Even to the verge of platitude! But the trouble with you clean-run westerners, if you’ll excuse my saying so, is that your minds can only react to one small fragment of the Truth; and again, if you’ll excuse my saying so, it is not the fragment that really matters.”
At any other moment, the creator of the Planet newspaper, whose circulation over five continents was reckoned in millions of copies a day, would have challenged this statement. A brain such as his susceptible only to things that didn’t matter! Yes, the usual “gup” of the inflated high-brow ass. But he was good to listen to, this pseudo-oriental, for the simple reason that he was clever enough to keep a special blend of tobacco to soothe, tickle, stimulate the brains of his patrons.
“You ‘practical’ men, who harness Niagara and dream of making the material universe your servant, who aspire to shoot yourselves out of a gun to the planet Jupiter and back again, have got hold of the wrong end of the stick, if you’ll excuse my saying so. However, that’s neither here nor there. You are a busy man with only a limited portion of what you are pleased to call ‘time’ at your disposal.”
“True enough,” Mr. Hartz was now able to muster his own private blend of raillery. “And you would have one believe that what lesser mortals call time and space are completely transcended by such a mind as your own.”
“In a manner of speaking, yes. If one is able to glimpse the Whole its counterfeits don’t matter much. But as I am sure you are not particularly concerned with the Realities, perhaps you’ll tell me what I can do for you.”
Mr. Hartz had now smoked the enchanted cigarette; his ideas were clearer, his thoughts less turgid, but he was not yet convinced that any good end would be served by admitting the mysterious Wygram to his confidence. Still, he hoped for enlightenment, perhaps for a little advice. Many whom the world accounted wise had bestowed upon this man undeniable credentials.