"I like a man with a clear brain," he chuckled. "I like a man who can analyze, who can deduce, who has studied the laws of synthesis. You were a student of Socrates, weren't you, years ago? You loved the Socratic method of reasoning?"
"Your deductions are from insufficient data," I remarked. "But that is by the way. Seeing you have taken the trouble to pay me this visit, would you mind telling me what has caused you to prophesy such evil things about me?"
"I do not prophesy, I warn. More than that"—again he looked at me keenly—"your report concerning your health and your declaration of Dr. Rhomboid's verdict on you doesn't justify you in not heeding my warning. Even although a thousand doctors pronounce the death sentence on you, you can still hope that they are mistaken; and you long to live, you hate the thought of death."
I reflected a moment. Somehow the old man's presence and his quick intelligence had made me think rapidly.
"Do you know," he went on, "that there is a great deal of reason for the foreigners' opinion concerning John Bull's brains? Mind you, John Bull is a cleverer man than he is thought to be; all the same, they have their reason for their opinions."
"What might their opinions be?" I asked.
He laughed quietly, and again looked at me keenly.
"You, now. You are a clever man, you have had a lawyer's training, you are given to observe, to analyze, to synthesize, but you have the Englishman's fault."
"And that?" I asked.
"You always try to find out the thing which is lying a long way off from you. You never observe the thing which is close by."