“What’s he up to?” Johnny asked himself. He had met this man only twice. Knew nothing of him really. Now in a stuffy little room in the back of Whong Lee’s shop where all manner of Oriental roots and seeds were sold, he was listening to strange talk. There was a druggy smell about the place that made him slightly dizzy. He wished in a vague sort of way that he was not there, but being there, decided to stay.
“Now!” The little yellow man heaved a heavy sigh. “Now you think. Ah yes, to think is easy. We always think, except when we sleep. Then we dream. You do not believe? Then you try not to think at all. Ah! This you cannot do.
“But to remember what you thought—” the little man rattled on, “ah, that is more difficult. But now you must remember. For very soon I shall show you what you have thought. It shall be all put down, right in here.” He tapped his instrument. “Where I can see it, read it when I choose. Tomorrow? Yes, in ten years? Yes. In a hundred years? Yes, yes, always.”
“Why, you—you couldn’t do that!” Johnny stammered.
“Ah, you shall see!” The little man’s wrinkled smile appeared again. “Now! Get ready—think! I record your thoughts.” A second button clicked, sounding loud in the silent, drug-scented room.
“He won’t record much,” the boy told himself stoutly. “But of course it’s all nonsense.”
He put his mind to the task of running over a song:
“I’m riding to the last round-up,
I’ll saddle Old Paint, and ri—ide—”
What utter nonsense! This little man was a fake. He could not keep his mind on the words of that song. A fly caught in a spider’s web buzzed loudly in one corner. He heard the rustle of rice paper—Whong Lee wrapping up some Ginsing roots perhaps.