Doctor Brown Behaves

Le Bon David was feeling a little uncomfortable. He was sitting in the front row, and Doctor Brown was beginning to misbehave.

He had already forced David to take a bite of his banana, and lick an indeterminate substance from a very large spoon.

Now he seemed to be inviting him to get up and dance. David knew that at perfomances such as these it was better to play along. He stood up graciously and allowed himself to be waltzed on the spot in front of his seat. But when Doctor Brown tried to gve him a big smoochy kiss, David drew the line, and sat down. Wait till I tell Vello about this, he thought. He won't believe it.

Now Doctor Brown had produced a Princess magazine. He read out a line, then asked the audience a simple question. No one was willing to chance a reply. David, finding the wait intolerable, called out the answer. Doctor Brown threw a green olive at him. I must not answer any more questions, thought David, no matter how much I feel impelled.

Doctor Brown, having thrown dripping handfuls of green olives at various members of the audience and driven three of them out of the room, decided to do some puppetry. Oh good, thought David, I do like puppetry. And he craned forward in his seat. But Doctor Brown's puppets were invisible. No matter how intricately he appeared to be manipulating them, David could see nothing but Doctor Brown's patterned trousers in the space where he was directed to look.

For an empiricist, it was thoroughly confusing.