“Thought not.” The old man yawned and stretched. “Jimmie, put the foolscap away. I want to talk.”
“Okay!” He smiled indulgently and tossed down the pencil.
“Plenty of time for chemistry. Time goes on forever, and chemistry’s part of it.
Not enough time for people on the other hand, no matter what. I like to feel the fellows working for me are in the proper mood. It’s my hunch that the mood you’re in is everything. You can come over to this glass maze week after week and figure out how to pick an atom off here and stick it on yonder; but if you’re in the wrong mood you never get any valuable answers. On the other hand, you can go out and lie pie-eyed drunk in the gutter for a month and come in here for one day, and if you feel hot you can discover more than ten men in ten lifetimes. Funny!”
“Still,” Jimmie said, “I don’t propose to try the inspirational method of the gutter.”
“Plenty sore, aren’t you?”
Jimmie was going to deny that. But he said, “Yes. Plenty.”
“Well, when people are sore it’s because they’re afraid. Every damn’ solitary time.
Maybe not afraid of exactly what they seem to be sore at—but afraid of something behind it. What do you think you’re afraid of, at this point?”
“Afraid?” He laughed unsympathetically. “Nothing.”