"
"Let me try it," Gofredo said.
The little Marine major went through the same routine. At his first
word, the uproar stopped; before he was through, the natives' faces
were sagging and crumbling into expressions of utter and
heartbroken grief.
"It's not as bad as all that, is it?" he said. "You try it, Mark."
"Me ... Mark ... Howell...." They looked bewildered.
"Let's try objects, and play-acting," Lillian suggested. "They're
farmers; they ought to have a word for water."
* * * * *
They spent almost an hour at it. They poured out two gallons of
water, pretended to be thirsty, gave each other drinks. The natives
simply couldn't agree on the word, in their own language, for water.
That or else they missed the point of the whole act. They tried
fire, next. The efficiency of a steel hatchet was impressive, and
so was the sudden flame of a pocket-lighter, but no word for fire
emerged, either.
"Ah, to Nifflheim with it!" Luis Gofredo cried in exasperation.
"We're getting nowhere at five times light speed.
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