"But there's no way of ventilating this. There's no way of knocking a window in it. It's—it's only a blank wall."
"Why a blank wall?" I inquired.
He turned and looked past me, with unseeing eyes.
"Because I can't remember," he said in a voice which made it seem that he was speaking more to himself than to me. He looked about him, with a helplessness that was pitiful. "I can't remember!" he repeated, with the forlornness of a frightened child.
"That's exactly what I wanted to get at," I cried, with a pretense at confident and careless intimacy. "So let's clear away in front of the blank wall. Let's at least try a kick or two at it."
"It's no use," he complained.
"Well, let's try," I persisted, with forced cheerfulness. "Let's get at the beginning of things."
"How far back do you want me to go?" he finally asked. He spoke with the weary listlessness of a patient confronted by an unwelcome practitioner.
"Let's begin right at the first," I blithely suggested.
He sat looking at his shaking fingers for a moment or two.