“Indeed ’e ’as, sir,” responded Mrs. Stott.
“And he can read, can’t he?”
“I’ve learned ’im what I could, sir: it isn’t much.”
“Well, perhaps I could lend him a few books.”
Challis made a significant pause, and again he looked at the boy; but there was no response, so he continued: “Tell me what he has read.”
“We’ve no books, sir, and we never ’ardly see a paper now. All we ’ave in the ’ouse is a Bible and two copies of Lillywhite’s cricket annual as my ’usband left be’ind.”
Challis smiled. “Has he read those?” he asked.
“The Bible ’e ’as, I believe,” replied Mrs. Stott.
It was a conversation curious in its impersonality. Challis was conscious of the anomaly that he was speaking in the boy’s presence, crediting him with a remarkable intelligence, and yet addressing a frankly ignorant woman as though the boy was not in the room. Yet how could he break that deliberate silence? It seemed to him as though there must, after all, be some mistake; yet how account for Crashaw’s story if the boy were indeed an idiot?
With a slight show of temper he turned to the Wonder.