"Isn't it really? I'm afraid I don't know much about this sort of thing. I'm quite helpless in this affair, really. I assure you I was driven to desperation to tell you all this; I mean, you must understand that absolute silence, secrecy, that is, is our most absolute sacred rule. Perhaps you could just slip something into her drink, knock her out, so to speak, and I could then bodily take her back--" "Mr. Fairfield," Dr. Quink felt it necessary to interrupt, "you must understand that it would not be ethical for me to do as you suggest. Now it seems to me that the essence of your wife's peculiarity lies in her relationship with you, her husband. So if you don't mind, perhaps we might talk about you for a while. It might be more comfortable for you on the couch. Please, it doesn't obligate you in any way. Yes, that's much better, isn't it. And I'll sit here, if I may. Now, then, go on, just tell me all about yourself. Go on just start talking. You'll find it'll come by itself after you get started." * * * * * "I suppose I asked for this. I mean, coming here as I did. I don't know what else I could have done, though. They prepare one for every emergency, as well, of course, as one can foresee the future, which is in this case actually the past, speaking chronologically. Your chronology, that is, not ours. I'm sure you follow me, though it seems to me I'm talking in circles. Are we accomplishing very much, do you think?" "We mustn't be impatient," Dr. Quink said. "These things come slowly, they take time, if you'll pardon the expression. But of course, it's impudent of _me_ to lecture _you_ on temporal effects." "Not at all, not at all, I assure you. I am no expert on the time continuum, no expert in the slightest. I daresay I don't understand the most basic principles behind it, just as you aren't required to understand electromagnetic theory in order to flick on the electric light. In fact, I believe it wasn't even necessary for Edison to understand it in order to invent the damned thing." "You know about Edison then?" "Oh, certainly. I've studied up quite a bit on this section of our history." "You're sure," Dr. Quink went on, "that you simply didn't learn about Edison in grammar school?" "Quite. Oh, yes, quite. No offense meant, sir, but you must certainly realize that between my time and this there have been a great many discoveries in the manifold fields embraced by science, so that people who in your own time were famous to schoolchildren are now, then, that is,--oh, I hope you know what I mean--known only to scholars of the period involved. In the time to which I belong the schoolchildren may know of Newton, Einstein and Fisher, but of such lesser luminaries as Edison, or even Avogadro or Galdeen, they are quite ignorant." "Galdeen?"