acing an expectant assistant examiner,
who resembled some predatory bird only waiting for life to be extinct
before falling upon the victim. Somewhat to his own surprise, however,
the victim showed signs of returning animation, and began to utter
strange, semi-articulate noises. The Head Examiner wrote on with
increasing speed; the assistant examiner, somewhat disappointed, still
preserved an expectant air. The victim became more active, and
astounded himself by carrying the war into the enemy's camp. He
announced himself as an adherent of the pressure method. He became
eloquent, describing his tribulations working an evaporator on a
vacuum. But the aim of examiners apparently is not to hear what one
knows but to reveal to a shocked world what one does not know. The
subject was immediately changed to the advantages of multi-polar
generators and the ethics of the single-wire system. The assistant
examiner reluctantly resigned any thoughts of an immediate banquet
upon the author's remains and assumed an attitude of charitable
tolerance, much as one watches an insect's valorous struggles to get
out of the molasses. The Head Examiner from time to time interjected a
short, sharp question, like a lancet into the discussion, but without
looking up or ceasing to write with extreme rapidity. And as time went
on and the whole range of knowledge was gone over in the attempt to
destroy him, the author began to wonder whether these men thought he
had, like Lord Bacon, taken all knowledge for his province, whether
tramp steamers carried a crew of technical pundits, and whether there
would be so many literary men and women about if they had to go
through this sort of thing. And the thought of literature brought back
George Meredith to mind again, only to be dismissed. It was much more
like being examined by Anthony Trollope or Arnold Bennett, the author
decided, than by Meredith. Appearances are misleading. The thin,
classical face never roused from its down-cast repose and implacable
attention. But at long last the assistant examiner shuffled his papers
and remained silent for a moment, as though regretfully admitting that
the victim was, within bounds, omniscient, and could not be decently
tortured any longer. As an after thought, however, and glancing at the
Head Examiner as he did so, he enquired whether the author had
experienced any break-downs, accidents, smashes....

The author had. It was a subject upon which he was an author