"Under-stand?" The man seemed to have difficulty forming the word. "You mean--" Pause. "Dr. Blair, I murv you. Is that it?" "Murv," repeated Jonathan. "All right, you murv me. Do you murv this? I do not always murv what you say." A laugh. "Of course not. How could you?" Suppressed groan. "Carooms," Easton had murmured, almost inaudibly. "Just when I almost murv, the kwakut goes freeble." Jonathan flipped the switch on the machine. "Murv" he wrote on his pad of paper. He added "Blikkel," "Carooms" and "Freeble." He stared at the list. He should understand, he thought. At times it seemed as if he did and then, in the next instant, he was lost again, and Easton was angry, and they had to start all over again. * * * * * Sighing, he took out more papers, notes from previous sessions, both with himself and with other linguists. The difficulty of reaching Easton was unlike anything he had ever before tackled. The six months of Navajo had been rough going, but he had done it, and done it well enough to earn the praise of Old Comas, his informant. Surely, he thought, after mastering a language like that, one in which the student must not only learn to imitate difficult sounds, but also learn a whole new pattern of thought-- Pattern of thought. Jonathan sat very still, as though movement would send the fleeting clue back into the corner from which his mind had glimpsed it. A whole new frame of reference. Suppose, he toyed with the thought, suppose the Martian language, whatever it was, was structured along the lines of Navajo, involving clearly defined categories which did not exist in English. "Murv," he said aloud. "I murv a lesson, but I blikkel a language." Eagerly, Jonathan reached again for the switch. Categories clearly defined, yes! But the categories of the Martian language were not those of the concrete or the particular, like the Navajo. They were of the abstract. Where one word "understand" would do in English, the Martian used two-- Good Lord, he realized, they might use hundreds! They might-- Jonathan turned on the machine, sat back and made notes, letting the recorder run uninterrupted. He made his notes, this time, on the feelings he received from the words Easton used. When the first tape was done, he put on the second. Margery tapped at the door just as the third tape was ending. "In a minute," he called, scribbling furiously. He turned off the machine, put out his cigarette and went to lunch, feeling better than he had in weeks. Richie was at the kitchen sink, washing his hands. "And next time," Margery was saying, "you wash up before you sit down." Richie blinked and watched Jonathan seat himself. "Daddy didn't wash his hands," he said. Margery fixed the six-year-old with a stern eye. "Richard, don't be rude." [Illustration] "Well, he didn't." Richie sat down and reached for his glass of milk.