Hooke twisted his bent neck around and peered at him curiously. Then, for the first time since Daniel had met him, he laughed out loud. 'You're afraid that I'm proposing to lower you, Daniel Waterhouse, three hundred feet down into the bottom of this well, with a scale in your lap, to weigh something? And that once down there the rope will break?' More laughing. 'You need to think more carefully about what I said.'