To requisition anything at all required an act of skilful and aggressive diplomacy in handling the administrators.
要想征用任何资源，都需要用富有技巧的交际手腕，去与行政人员打交道。
All they could obtain was a double-beam oscilloscope and an audio-frequency Hewlett-Packard oscillator.
他们只得到了一台双线示波器，还有一台惠普音频振荡器。
They even had to fight for this, first being fobbed off with an inferior one, and having to demand something better from SCU3's Controller, Colonel Maltby.
就连这些，他们也费了好大的劲。他们起初被一台简易示波器给打发了，于是只好向第3特别通信组的麦特比上校申请像样一点的东西。
For Alan, the process was as baffling as it ever was for Alice in the Looking Glass shop, trying to locate what she needed on the White Queen's shelves.
对艾伦来说，这个过程的复杂程度，就像爱丽丝试图在白皇后的柜子上找东西。
Dealing with Maltby on the telephone drove Alan to extremes of nervousness, and people remarked upon how his speech, halting at the best of times, was on these occasions an almost indecipherable scrambling operation itself.
他在电话中与麦特比对话时，感到非常紧张，其他人评论说，他说话时的停顿完全没有规律，简直可以作为密钥来使用。
He hated the showmanship that was required in negotiating for equipment.
艾伦讨厌那些表演性的腔调，
It was forever his bitter complaint that more adept players—'Charlatans', 'Politicians', 'Salesmen'—would get their way not through expertise but through clever talk.
他永远都在愤愤不平地质问，那些学术骗子、政客和商人，为什么不需要真本事，只需要油腔滑调就能成功。
He still tended to expect reason to prevail as if by magic.
他仍然期望，凡事都要有理由。