"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!"