"A doctor? Why, I'm not sick!" exclaimed Dick.
"No, I suppose not. But I read of a case the other day of a man who was hit on the head and he forgot everything he ever knew. They took him to a hospital, operated on him, and his memory came back to him."
"I wonder if mine would?" asked Dick, with a new look of hope on his face.
"There's nothing like trying," said Frank. "Suppose we ask the superintendent, Mr. Snowden?"
"That's a good idea," came from Jimmy, who was sitting in a corner of the room.
This they did, and Mr. Snowden agreed to have a physician who was a friend of his look at Dick. The superintendent of the lodging-house agreed, in a measure, with Frank that perhaps there might be some injury to Dick's head because of the blow, which, when the resulting depression on the skull was removed, would bring back his memory.
A few days later the doctor examined Dick. The boy waited anxiously for the verdict.
"I am sorry," said the doctor, "but I can do nothing for you. There is no special injury to the head. The skull was not broken by whatever, or whoever, it was that hit you. You suffered some shock, and that took away your memory. Your mind now is as good as it was before the accident, except that everything in the past is blotted out."
"And will I never remember it again?" asked Dick.
"I would not say that. The chances are that some day it will all come back to you with a rush. Some forgotten incident will recall it all to you. It may be a slight thing—the hearing of some forgotten name—the seeing of some forgotten face—and then you may remember who you are and where you lived."