The doctor waved his hands despairingly as Thomas scuttled back without another word.
"It's no good," he said, "no good. And yet he told me quite intelligibly—"
Frank was laughing quietly to himself.
"But you haven't told me one word—"
"Don't laugh," said the old man simply. "Look here, my boy, it's no laughing matter. I tell you I can't think of anything else. It's bothering me."
"But—"
The doctor waved his hands.
"Well," he said, "I can say it no better. It was the whole thing. The way you looked, the way you spoke. It was most unusual. But it affected me—it affected me in the same way; and I thought that perhaps you could explain."
(V)
It was not until the Monday afternoon that Frank persuaded the doctor to let him go. Dr. Whitty said everything possible, in his emphatic way, as to the risk of traveling again too soon; and there was one scene, actually conducted in the menagerie—the only occasion on which the doctor mentioned Frank's relations—during which he besought the young man to be sensible, and to allow him to communicate with his family. Frank flatly refused, without giving reasons.