“Supposing he won’t let me.”
“Trust him to say so. Of course, we mayn’t get through. He may have thought off.”
“You can think off, can you?”
“Yes, that’s how you protect yourself. Otherwise life here would be unbearable. Just keep quiet for a second, will you?”
There was an intense silence. Presently Jeffreson said: “Now you’re through.”
And Mr. Spalding found himself in a white-washed room, scantily furnished with three rows of bookshelves, a writing-table, a table set with mysterious instruments, and two chairs. A shaded lamp on the writing-table gave light. Mr. Spalding had left the umbrella pine country blazing with sunlight, but it seemed that Kant’s time was somewhere about ten o’clock at night. The large window was bared to a dark-blue sky of stars.
A little, middle-aged man sat at the writing-table. He wore eighteenth-century clothes and a tie wig. The face that looked up at Mr. Spalding was lean and dried, the mouth tight, the eyes shining distantly with a deep, indrawn intelligence. Mr. Spalding understood that he was in the presence of Immanuel Kant.
“You thought me up?”
“Forgive me. I am James Spalding, a student of philosophy. I was told that you might, perhaps, be willing to explain to me the—the very extraordinary conditions in which I find myself.”
“May I ask, Mr. Spalding, if you have paid any particular attention to my philosophy?”