"How do you feel to-day Sidney?" asked Jim sitting down beside the boy.
"Not very well," he replied vaguely. "I feel that I am not myself. I came here to read myself to sleep."
"Why did you want to do that?"
"Because I could go away then. I always do when I feel like this."
"Like what?" Jim was puzzled. The boy was by no means mad, yet he talked in a manner quite beyond the comprehension of a sane person. Jim had never met anyone like him before and was much taken up with the oddity of the case from a medical point of view.
"I can't explain; you would not understand," said Sidney. "Please leave me alone, Dr. Herrick."
At this moment Bess called to Jim from the other side of the room and he hurried across to her. Sidney remained vaguely staring into nothingness. After a time his eyes closed and he looked as though he were fast asleep. The others gathered round the tea table, and prepared to eat. Bess would not allow her brother to be awakened.
"It makes him ill if he is roused suddenly," she said. "He will wake up himself and be all right."
"It doesn't look to me like a natural sleep," said Jim anxiously. "How pale he is! Don't you think----"
"No," said Ida sharply, "I agree with Bess. Sidney had better be left alone. He gets into these states at times. Let us have tea. I am so hungry, and it's past five."