"Well, first of all, I'd like to know what you do here?"

"Why?"

"Because I can't figure out what I'm supposed to do here, until I find out what you do here, can I?"

"Never mind."

"Never mind?"

Remo stood before the desk still, waiting to be offered a seat. The offer did not come, so he sat anyway.

"That's right, never mind." Brewster said this with a smile.

"Why should I never mind?"

"Simply because you wouldn't understand."

"Try me."

"I'd rather not."

"I'd rather you would," Remo said.

"Really now," Brewster said, crossing a leg while sucking the fumes from the lit pipe. "You'd rather I would. Well, do you know that the only reason you're here is because of a government grant? You come with it. Now I don't wish to make your stay here unpleasant, but you are an unwanted guest. Already, last night, with your uncivil behaviour at the chess tournament, you have created dissension among my staff. I can do without that. I can also do without your skulking about trying to provide security and protection for things that need neither security nor protection."

"Did McCarthy understand that?"

"McCarthy was a policeman, for heaven's sakes."

"Who is a dead policeman."

"Right. A dead policeman." Brewster said it as if he had been asked to say a prayer for a departed piece of roast beef. "Oppressive violence-that is, violence in reaction to violence-breeds greater violence. A pure example is McCarthy. Do you understand what I'm talking about?"

"I think you're trying to say that McCarthy got himself killed."

"Right. You're brighter than I thought. Now, let's take this supposition a little farther. Let us assume that violence is an expurgative, that it is-try to follow me-a natural and necessary occurrence and that to try to curb it or redirect it produces awesomely more-devastating circumstances by a basic geometric progression of intensity, an intensity that we cannot now measure but that we will ultimately use as a guideline, much in the way of E equals MC square. Do you follow?"