He had discovered that no one believed him when he was honest. “How did you learn this technique?” “I read it in a textbook.” “How long have you been a lawyer?” “About seven minutes.” People didn’t hear what they didn’t want or expect to hear. People out in this real world tended to expect it to be reasonable, and unreasonable truths could be laughed off and passed over. He wasn’t sure whether it was funny, that he could tell the truth and not be understood, or sad, that his life was so odd that the truth about it was unbelievable.