"Oh, now, Greek. Really."
He said in a weary tone, "Don't talk, Virgie. Just listen. It won't tire you so much. But bear in mind that this is simply the most trifling application of my discovery. I could use it for separating U-235 from U-238 just as easily. In fact, I already—" He stopped in mid-sentence, cocked his head, looked at me and backtracked. "Never mind that. But you know what a Maxwell demon is?"
"No."
"Good for you, Virgie. Good for you!" he applauded. "I knew I'd get the truth out of you if I waited long enough." Another ambiguous remark, I thought to myself. "But you surely know the second law of thermodynamics."
"Surely."
"I thought you'd say that," he said gravely. "So then you know that if you put an ice cube in a glass of warm water, for instance, the ice melts, the water cools, and you get a glass with no ice but with all the water lowered in temperature. Right? And it's a one-way process. That is, you can't start with a glass of cool water and, hocus-pocus, get it to separate into warm water and ice cube, right?"
"Naturally," I said, "for heaven's sake. I mean that's silly."
"Very silly," he agreed. "You know it yourself, eh? So watch."
He didn't say hocus-pocus. But he did adjust something on one of his gadgets.
There was a faint whine and a gurgling, spluttering sound, like fat sparks climbing between spreading electrodes in a Frankenstein movie.