upply those stimuli."

"Exactly. And it's up to you to say whether he gets a chance."

Thoughtfully the executive drummed his desk with his pencil. Presently a
smile, markedly boyish and pleasant, broke over his face. More than
once, in the line of duty imposed by his high office, he had been
obliged to make decisions contrary to every dictate of mercy. He was all
the more pleased at this opportunity to do, with a clear conscience, the
thing that his kindness prompted. He turned slowly in his chair.

"Darby, I suppose you followed what the doctor said?" he asked easily.

"Fairly well, I think."

"I'll review it, if I may. It seems, Ben, that you have been the victim
of a strange set of unfortunate circumstances. Due to the efforts of an
old family friend--a most devoted and earnest friend if I may say
so--we've looked up your record, and now we know more about you than you
know about yourself. You served in France with Canadian troops and
there, you will be proud to know, you won among other honors the highest
honor that the Government of England can award a hero. There you were
shell-shocked, in the last months of the war.

"You did not return to your home. Shell-shock, Forest tells me, is a
curious thing, resulting in many forms of mania. Yours led you into
crime. For some months you lived as a desperate criminal in Seattle. You
came to yourself in the act of breaking into a bank, only to find that
your memory of not only your days of crime but all that had gone before
was left a blank. That night, as you know, marked your arrest.

"Forest has just explained that you are organically sound--that the
recovery of your memory is just a matter of time and the proper stimuli.
Now, Ben, it isn't the purpose of this State to punish men when they are
not responsible for their deeds. Melville tells me that your record, in
your own home, was the best; your war record alone, I believe, would
entitle you to the limit of mercy from the State. I don't see how we can
hold you responsible for deeds done while you were mentally disabled
from shell-shock.

"All you need for complete recovery, to call everything back in your
mind, is the proper stimuli. At least that is the opinion of Doctor
Forest. What those proper stimuli are of course no one knows for
sure--but Doctor Forest has a theory; and I think he will tell you that
he will share the credit for it with the same man who has been your
friend all the way through. They thin