I'll begin it all over again, and--" "Don't now--for goodness' sake, don't do anything of the kind, because I tell you my head is in such a condition that I don't believe I could understand the most trifling question a man could ask me.
"Now don't you be afraid.

I'll put it so plain this time that you can't help but get the hang of it.

We will begin at the very beginning." [Leaning far across the table, with determined impressiveness wrought upon his every feature, and fingers prepared to keep tally of each point enumerated; and I, leaning forward with painful interest, resolved to comprehend or perish.] "You know the vein, the ledge, the thing that contains the metal, whereby it constitutes the medium between all other forces, whether of present or remote agencies, so brought to bear in favor of the former against the latter, or the latter against the former or all, or both, or compromising the relative differences existing within the radius whence culminate the several degrees of similarity to which--" I said: "Oh, hang my wooden head, it ain't any use!--it ain't any use to try--I can't understand anything.

The plainer you get it the more I can't get the hang of it." I heard a suspicious noise behind me, and turned in time to see Hingston dodging behind a newspaper, and quaking with a gentle ecstasy of laughter.

I looked at Ward again, and he had thrown off his dread solemnity and was laughing also.