Examinations will then become matters of capacity in the real meaning
of that word, and we shall be tempted to invest our pocket-money by
advertisements of "A cheap line in Astrology," "Try our double-strength,
two-minute course of Classics," "This is remnant day for Trigonometry
and Metaphysics," and so on.

My friend did not get as far as that. With him the process did not take
more than a minute, but it was startling in its results, and reduced me
to an extraordinary state of hypnotic receptibility. When it was over
my instructor tapped with a finger on my lips, uttering aloud as he did
so the words--

"Know none; know some; know little; know morel" again and again; and the
strangest part of it is that as he spoke I did know at first a little,
then more, and still more, by swift accumulation, of his speech and
meaning. In fact, when presently he suddenly laid a hand over my eyes
and then let go of my head with a pleasantly put question as to how I
felt, I had no difficulty whatever in answering him in his own tongue,
and rose from the ground as one gets from a hair-dresser's chair, with
a vague idea of looking round for my hat and offering him his fee.

"My word, sir!" I said, in lisping Martian, as I pulled down my cuffs
and put my cravat straight, "that was a quick process. I once heard of
a man who learnt a language in the moments he gave each day to having
his boots blacked; but this beats all. I trust I was a docile pupil?"

"Oh, fairly, sir," answered the soft, musical voice of the strange being
by me; "but your head is thick and your brain tough. I could have taught
another in half the time."