‘You’re mad.’
‘No, I ain’t,’ he said, unoffended and completely certain. ‘I already got the part that’s like hands. I can move ‘em anywhere and they do what I want, though they’re too young yet to do much good. I got the part that talks. That one’s real good.’
‘I don’t think you talk very well at all,’ I said. I cannot stand incorrect English.
He was surprised. ‘I’m not talking about me! She’s back yonder with the others.’
‘She?’
‘The one that talks. Now I need one that thinks, one that can take anything and add it to anything else and come up with a right answer. And once they’re all together, and all the parts get used together often enough, I’ll be that new kind of thing I told you about. See? Only—I wish it had a better head on it than me.’
My own head was swimming. ‘What made you start doing this?’
He considered me gravely. ‘What made you start growing hair in your armpits?’ he asked me. ‘You don’t figure a thing like that. It just happens.’
‘What is that… that thing you do when you look in my eyes?’
‘You want a name for it? I ain’t got one. I don’t know how I do it. I know I can get anyone I want to do anything. Like you’re going to forget about me.’