'Did you notice the man who just spoke with me?' I asked him.
'Yes, sir.'
'Ever see him before?'
'I have that. A few days ago he stopped and asked after one of the patients—feller that fell into the lagoon the other night. Said he'd heard that a young man fell off a bridge.'
'And—may I ask how you answered him?'
The guard looked at me quizzically. 'Well, you see, we've been ordered not to answer questions about this case, for some reason that you may know better than I do; and so I couldn't tell him much about it, but I offered to ask for him. He wouldn't have that; said it was only a passing inquiry,' and he laughed knowingly.
He had seen me when I came with the men who bore the guard upon a stretcher, and felt that he might overstep the rules with safety.
'How is the fellow, anyhow?' he asked. 'They say he was one of us.'
'He is one of you,' I replied, 'and we hope to see him about at the end of a week.'