'Faces, now,' I urged; 'do you ever see faces which suggest people you have known in the past?'
He was silent for two or three seconds.
'Yes, and no,' he replied. 'I see faces sometimes which, while they don't cause me to remember, give me strange fancies and incomprehensible longings. Sometimes I hear names which have the same effect upon me.'
'And your memory has been good for ordinary things?'
He laughed gaily. 'I think that whatever I went through has increased my powers of memory,—that is, those things that took place since I woke up. If you will ask the sub., or the drill sergeant who gave me my training, they will tell you that there was never any need to tell me anything twice. I forget nothing, I never have to make an effort to remember. When I hear a thing, or see a man's face, I never forget it. I worked hard, too. I have read a good deal. I found that I knew nothing of mathematics, and that my knowledge of German and French was very hazy. It is not so now. Things like that have come to me in a miraculous way.'
'Have you tried for a commission?'
'No. I have been offered one, but I wouldn't have it. Something, I don't know what, told me not to. I wouldn't even have a corporal's stripe.'
'And you have no more idea of who you really are than you had when I saw you first?'
'No, not a bit.'
'Let me see if I can help your memory,' I said. 'Devonshire, think of that word, now, and what it represents,—does it bring back anything to you?'