Changing Places

Soon after the Second World War a famous physicist was asked to deliver a series of speeches across the states of America. He was a brilliant scholar but he was rather uncomfortable about standing before large audiences. He didn’t change his speech so before long he became bored with both the speech and the routine of giving it.

Now he had a chauffeur who drove him from place to place and they became very good friends. One day the physicist suggested to the chauffeur that they should change places. To break the monotony they would swap clothes. The physicist would drive the car and the chauffeur would give the speech. He realised that few people knew what he looked like and they didn’t think there were be any problems because the driver had heard the speech so often.

Well, that evening everything went well. The chauffeur delivered the speech exactly as he had heard it but then something happened upon which they had not counted. The hosts asked for a question time to follow the speech. One arrogant person asked the first question that was so elaborate and technical that it took five minutes to ask. After a few moments of silence, the chauffeur replied. He said, “I am very surprised with that question. The answer is so plainly obvious I would expect almost anyone to know the answer. And just to show you how easy it is, I’m going to ask my chauffeur over here to answer it.”