"Ah! That's the big question. Nobody knows. You can take two men, equal physically in every respect, equal in upbringing, education, health, and with the same sized brain. One of them might turn out to be a genius, the other an average individual, and nobody knows what makes the difference. Nobody knows what makes an infant prodigy, or what it is which enables a child of two to read easily, or a kid of five or six to play some instrument as if he'd been at it for years or compose symphonies, or master advanced mathematics. Same answer. Nobody knows. It's got nothing to do with heredity. So few geniuses have had genius offspring that they form exceptions to the rule. Again, why does an infant prodigy sometimes lose his gift or talent entirely as he grows older? We don't know. All we know is that the gift or talent is there, but where it comes from, or why it is in one brain and not in another, we don't know. But surely you don't have to have me to tell you all this, Phil? What's on your mind?" "Listen to this," Snow said, and went to the tape recorder. * * * * * He rewound the tape to its beginning, depressed the switch marked _Play_, and presently they heard the two voices, Snow's and Richardson's. "Now!" said Snow as the point on the tape approached. There came the sudden stopping of Richardson's voice in the middle of an instrument reading, the short silence, then Richardson's voice chanting the strange sounds. Franstein took his pipe from between his teeth and his mouth fell open as he listened. The sounds ceased and Richardson's voice resumed the instrument reading at the point at which it had left off. "That's all," said Snow, and switched off the machine. Franstein put his pipe back into his mouth. "Is this the recording of this afternoon's test?" "Yes. What d'you make of it?" "Let's hear it again." Snow played back the recording a second and a third time, and then said: "Well?" Franstein went to the table and helped himself to more coffee before replying. "It's a new one on me," he said presently. "I've got about a thousand recordings of languages and dialects from all over the world, and not one of them is anything like that." "You think it is a language, not just sounds?" "That we've got to find out, but I'd say, offhand, it's a primitive form of a language of some sort." "Then how the devil does it come out of a man like Richardson who's never spoken anything but English--nor his forebears, for that matter?" Franstein shrugged his shoulders. "How does great music come out of a child of six, and so on? Same question, same answer. Nobody knows. Have you spoken to Richardson about it?" "No. I rang his bungalow just before dinner and spoke to Sandra. Richardson was in the shower, and she said he was feeling fine. I didn't tell her about this, of course." "Then it couldn't have been some sort of mediumistic trance. They usually feel the effects of that sooner or later."