Came finally a time when Joe’s pronunciation of a sentence-word blanked out Gail’s sample; the screen turned dark. He felt more triumph over that than anything be could remember.
His delight was short. By a circuit Gail had thought — fully added somedays earlier the machine answered with a flourish of trumpets, loud applause, and then added in a cooing voice, “Mama’s good boy!”
He turned to her. “Woman, you spoke of matrimony. If you ever do manage to marry me, I’ll beat you.’
“I haven’t made up my mind about you yet,” she answered evenly. “Now try this word, Joe — ”
Baldwin showed up that evening called him aside. “Joel C’mere. Listen, lover boy, you keep your animal nature out of your work, or I’ll have to find you a new teacher.”
“But — ”
“You heard me. Take her swimming, take her riding, after hours you are on your own. Work time — strictly business. I’ve got plans for you; I want you to get smarted up.”
“She complained about me?”
“Don’t be silly. It’s my business to know what’s going on.”
“Hmm. Kettle Belly, what is this shopping-for-a” husband she kids about? Is she serious, or is it just intended to rattle me?”
“Ask her. Not that it matters, as you won’t have any choice if she means it. She has the calm persistence of the law of gravitation.”
“Ouch! I had had the impression that the ‘New Men’ did not bother with marriage and such like, as you put it, ‘monkey customs.'”
“Some do, some don’t. Me, I’ve been married quite a piece, but I mind a mousy little member of our lodge who had had nine kids by nine fathers-all wonderful genius-plus kids. On the other hand I can point out one with eleven kids-Thalia Wagner-who has never so much as looked at another man. Geniuses make their own rules in such matters, Joe; they always have. Here are some established statistical facts about genius, as shown by Armatoe’s work — ”
He ticked them off. “Geniuses are usually long lived. They are not modest, not honestly so. They have infinite capacity for taking pains. They are emotion — ally indifferent to accepted codes of morals-they make their own rules. You seem to have the stigmata, by the way.”
‘Thanks for nothing. Maybe I should have a new teacher, is there anyone else available who can do it.”
“Any of us can do it, just as anybody handy teaches a baby to talk. She’s actually a biochemist, when she has time for it.”
“When she has time?”
“Be careful of that kid, son. Her real profession is the same as yours-honorable hatchet man. She’s killed upwards of three hundred people.” Kettle Belly grinned — “If you want to switch teachers, just drop me a wink.” Gilead-Greene hastily changed the subject. “You were speaking of work for me; how about Mrs. Keithley? Is she still alive?”
“Yes, blast her.”
“Remember, I’ve got dibs on her.”
“You may have to go to the Moon to get her. She’s reported to be building a vacation home there. Old age seems to be telling on her; you had better get on with your home work if you want a crack at her.” Moon Colony even then was a center of geriatrics for the rich. The low gravity was easy on their hearts, made them feel young-and possibly extended their lives.
“Okay, I will.”
Instead of asking for a new teacher Joe took a highly polished apple to their next session. Gail ate it, leaving him very little core, and put him harder to work than ever. While perfecting his hearing and pronunciation, she started him on the basic thousand-letter vocabulary by forcing him to start to talk simple three and four-letter sentences, and by answering him in different word-sentences using the same phonetic letters. Some of the vowel and consonant sequences were very difficult to pronounce.
Master them he did — He had been used to doing most things easier than could those around him; now he was in very fast company. He stretched himself and began to achieve part of his own large latent capacity. When he began to catch some of the dinner — table conversation and to reply in simple Speedtalk — being forbidden by Gail to answer in English-she started him on the ancillary vocabularies.