The first one simply wasn’t gelling right. I’m going back to this one, instead.
“One wonders how much better a personal meeting might go,” I suggested, curious as to how it would be received this time. It was agreed that you had to know the right sort to get an introduction to the man, which I thought was rather clever of him. What surprised me was how difficult it was proving for me to know the right sort. I was almost starting to wonder if I had lost my touch.
“Oh, I have yet to meet him myself!” she cried, with a simper that made her somehow seem ten years younger. “I am assured by those who would know that it is no reflection on me. The poor man is so beset with would-be hanger-ons and creatures, it falls upon his true friends to ensure that only those advanced enough to understand his work are given the privilege of conferring with him directly.” The simper turned into a real smile, with just the hint of white. “I was most put out when I was first told this, of course. But now that I have studied his Method some, I quite understand their reasoning. I would have simply wasted his time before.”
“I find that impossible to believe,” I murmured more or less automatically. “At any rate, clearly I must attend one of the good doctor’s lectures, without delay. There is one this Friday, is there not?”
“Every Monday and Friday,” she told me immediately: I nodded, to cover the odd flicker of apprehension I felt from seeing her flashing eyes. “Seven PM sharp, at the Gibbons Building. The Doctor suggests that we refrain from eating for an hour before attending a lecture, and to drink nothing but broth. ‘A Clear stomach makes a Clear mind,” he always says.”