“What’s your name, lad?”“Newton. Newton Pulsifer.”“LUCIFER? What’s that you say? Are ye of the Spawn of Darkness, a tempting beguiling creature from the pit, wanton limbs steaming from the fleshpots of Hades, in tortured and lubricious thrall to your Stygian and hellish masters?”“That’s Pulsifer,” explained Newton. “With a P. I don’t know about the other stuff, but we come from Surrey.”The voice on the phone sounded vaguely disappointed.”
“We say that Columbus discovered America and Newton discovered gravity, as though America and gravity weren't there until Columbus and Newton got wind of them.”
“We are intelligent beings: intelligent beings cannot have been formed by a crude, blind, insensible being: there is certainly some difference between the ideas of Newton and the dung of a mule. Newton's intelligence, therefore, came from another intelligence”
“What’s your name, then?”Tessa looked at him in disbelief. “What’s my name?”“Don’t you know it?”
“You scared me for a minute there. I thought Newton was dragging your dead body off to bury it in the woods.”
“Shake, Newton.”