Haugh was a wonderfully responsive subject to lobbying. No lobbyist had ever come to him in vain. For a start he had no prejudices against anyone, not even the people almost everyone had prejudices against. He thought Nobbs was at heart sincere. He believed there was a great deal to be said for Goldwasser, and that Nunn had been much misunderstood. He said openly that it was not Macintosh’s fault he was a Scotsman.
But above all, Haugh had an open mind. It was open at the front, and it was open at the back. Opinions, beliefs, philosophies entered, sojourned briefly, and were pushed out at the other end by the press of incoming convictions and systems. Lamarckism, Montanism, Leninism, Buchmanism, Kleinism, Spenglerism – they all blew in with the draught, whirled cheerfully around, and sailed out again. It depended on who had spoken to him last. On Tuesday morning he would meet a man who believed in acupuncture, cheap money, and hand-blocked Victorian wallpaper, and throughout the day he would go round with the sort of quiet, sincere devotion to these ideals that would clearly withstand torture and martyrdom. But on Tuesday evening he would meet a man who pointed out that there were certain elementary logical flaws in the idea of acupuncture, cheap money, and hand-blocked Victorian wallpaper, and on Wednesday he would appear radiant with a gentle pity for all those naïve and credulous souls who had been taken in by them. ‘One has to work systematically,’ Rowe would say to him over coffee in the morning. ‘I know,’ Haugh would reply, his soft grey eyes filled with sincerity, and he would work systematically until lunchtime, when Macintosh would happen to remark to him over the soup: ‘System is the methodology of machines and fools.’ ‘I know,’ Haugh would reply, gently, so as not to make Macintosh feel how obvious his remark was. And he would work unsystematically all afternoon. He was a profoundly modest man, and in his modesty he knew that since he had evidently been wrong so often in the past, he was in no position now to cast stones at any idea, however wretched, or to refuse to take it in and give it shelter. His intelligence, unhampered by any critical processes, was quick and agile, and he was often convinced by a man’s arguments before he had had time to put them. ‘I don’t really think your theory stands up,’ someone would say to him. ‘I mean, if you look at all the evidence . . .’ ‘I know,’ Haugh would reply. ‘I know. It really doesn’t stand up at all.’
There was always a pleasant murmuring in the air at the Institute, and it was the sound of Haugh gently saying ‘I know.’ Everyone liked Haugh, since they found his ideas so congenial, and Haugh liked everyone, for much the same reasons.
Haugh’s house was as open as his mind. People he had scarcely met called for meals, stayed on for the night and remained for several months, quarrelling with one another and breaking the furniture, until they were dislodged by the press of new arrivals. Immense bottle parties occurred from time to time for no easily discernible reason, filling the house with repulsive people, or nice people pretending to be repulsive in order not to draw attention to themselves, and then ebbed again, as suddenly and inexplicably.