I know you know what I've known." Mr.Longdon, his nippers again in place, hesitated.

"Yes, I know." "And you've accepted it." "How could I help it?
To reckon with such cleverness--!" "Was beyond you?
Ah it wasn't my cleverness," Mitchy said.

"There's a greater than mine.

There's a greater even than Van's.

That's the whole point," he went on while his friend looked at him hard.