he
asked.

"I've told you he can't talk," Tommy, who was also kneeling by him,
explained.

"And I did not ask you," the professor snapped. "What if he can not! May
I not see him make the effort?"

"But what's the use of having the poor beggar make the effort when you
know he can't put it over? Why not get down to cases and cure him,
instead of monkeying?"

"Down to cases! Cure him!" Monsieur sputtered. "How great a surgeon are
you to direct me in this impertinent manner?"

Really, he was quite a great deal put out.

"You fellows cut it," I interposed. "While you're squabbling the chap
might click it, and then what?"

"I'm not squabbling," Tommy looked up earnestly. "I'm only saying it's a
rotten shame to put a _blesse_ through a lot of unnecessary paces that
hurt him, and I stick to it! But go ahead, professor!"

"I shall go ahead, have no fear of it! You think me cruel--but see: if I
am aware something is wrong with a machine, how better to find out what
than by trying to make it run?"

He turned again to his examination, while Tommy lit a cigarette and sat
nearby, looking on. At last Monsieur gave a sigh, indicating that his
diagnosis was ready. I waited until he, too, had lit a cigarette, then
asked:

"Well, doctor, how serious?"

"Perhaps not serious, as there is no fracture. He has suffered a
concussion over the third frontal convolution, resulting in an
aphasia--aphemia we are sure of, and doubtless also agraphia----"

"Hold on! This isn't the University of Bucharest," Tommy cried. "If you
insist on telling us, instead of putting this man to bed where he ought
to be, tell it nursery-fashion!"

"Already I have said it for children," he witheringly replied.

"Then God help 'em!" This in a whisper from Gates, but with no thought
of levity.

"Go ahead and cure the man," I implored. "We couldn't understand you,
anyhow."

"But, yes, you will understand--I desire it! This blow has produced the
aphemia. If he were not illiterate we could, by asking him to write, say
if agraphia also is present. But he can not write, therefore we do not
know whether he can or not; so, therefore, we only know that he can not
speak."

"You know he can't write, too--you just said so!"

"Exactly, my boy Tommy, you have the correct idea. Yet we do not know it
by the test."

"I begin to see what he's driving at, Jack. He knows he can't write
because it's a known fact, but he doesn't know it by the scientifically
know