A question knocks from the far end of the table while you aim at the peak of your career. Mercury, the inner voice that sorts and comments without pause, faces off from the meridian, the visible heading your work climbs toward. The saying and the public peak call each other to account. Each time you show the work, a voice opposite argues it, qualifies it, makes it sharpen. The message and the spot where you display yourself never line up on their own. Between what you say and what you actually put before the world, your public voice gets whetted, reply against counter-reply, each one trimming the next. The other hands you back your own words before you have had a chance to polish them.