' Now,
some of them insist that that is monomania. It is _inconciliable_!"
"All this makes it very clear to me, Jonathan," the professor
answered, with a magisterial solemnity that greatly impressed the old
servant, "that your master is absorbed in a great work. He is deep in
vast meditations, and has no wish to be distracted by the petty
preoccupations of ordinary life. A man of genius forgets everything
among his intellectual labors. One day the famous Newton----"
"Newton?--oh, ah! I don't know the name," said Jonathan.
"Newton, a great geometrician," Porriquet went on, "once sat for
twenty-four hours leaning his elbow on the table; when he emerged from
his musings, he was a day out in his reckoning, just as if he had been
sleeping. I will go to see him, dear lad; I may perhaps be of some use
to him."
"Not for a moment!" Jonathan cried. "Not though you were King of
France--I mean the real old one. You could not go in unless you forced
the doors open and walked over my body. But I will go and tell him you
are here, M. Porriquet, and I will put it to him like this, 'Ought he
to come up?' And he will say Yes or No. I never say, 'Do you wish?' or
'Will you?' or 'Do you want?' Those words are scratched out of the
dictionary.
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