“My biography for all practical purposes,” Mr Bunker continued, “begins in that sequestered retreat, Clankwood Asylum. How and with whom I came there I haven’t the very faintest recollection. I simply woke up from an extraordinary drowsiness to find myself recovering from a sharp attack of what I may most euphoniously call mental excitement. The original cause of it is very dim in my mind, and has, so far as I remember, nothing to do with the rest of the story. The attack was very short, I believe. I soon came to something more or less like myself; only, Baron, the singular thing is, that it was to all intents and purposes a new self—whether better or worse, my faulty memory does not permit me to say. I’d clean forgotten who I was and all about me. I found [pg 172] myself called Francis Beveridge, but that wasn’t my old name, I know.”
“Ha!” exclaimed the Baron, growing interested despite himself.
“And the most remarkable thing of all is that up till this day I haven’t the very vaguest notion what my real name is.”
“Zo?” said the Baron. “Bot vy should they change it?”
“There you’ve laid your finger on the mystery, Baron. Why? Heaven knows: I wish I did!”
The Baron looked at him with undisguised interest.
“Strange!” he said, thoughtfully.
“Damnably strange. I found myself compelled to live in an asylum and answer to a new name, and really, don’t you know, under the circumstances I could give no very valid reason for getting out. I seemed to have blossomed there like one of the asylum plants. I couldn’t possibly have been more identified with the place. Besides, I’m free to confess that for some time my reason, taking it all in all, wasn’t particularly valid on any point. By George, I had a funny time! Ha, ha, ha!”
His mirth was so infectious that the Baron raised his voice in a hearty “Ha, ha!” and then stopped abruptly, and said cautiously, “Haf a care, Bonker, zey may hear!”
“However, Baron,” Mr Bunker continued, “out I was determined to get, and out I came in the manner of which perhaps my friend Escott has already informed you.”