"He can, but he won't."
This was startling enough, and I pressed my enquiry.
"How do you know? Are you sure he can?"
"Ah!" Only that irritating, monosyllabic assent.
"Look here, Stott," I said, "don't you want to talk about the child?"
He shrugged his shoulders and threw more wood into the pond with a strained attentiveness as though he were peculiarly anxious to hit some particular wafer of the vivid, floating weed. For a full five minutes we maintained silence. I was trying to subdue my impatience and my temper. I knew Stott well enough to know that if I displayed signs of either, I should get no information from him. My self-control was rewarded at last.
"I've 'eard 'im speak," he said, "speak proper, too, not like a baby."
He paused, and I grunted to show that I was listening, but as he volunteered no further remark, I said: "What did you hear him say?"
"I dunno," replied Stott, "somethin' about learnin' and talkin'. I didn't get the rights of it, but the missus near fainted—she thinks 'e's Gawd A'mighty or suthing."
"But why don't you make him speak?" I asked deliberately.