Again, the man’s eyelid, this time his right, eyelid, twitched.
“Don’t do that,” said the doctor; “it distracts your attention from what I’m saying. Listen to me now. Pastor Manders!” He pointed to the priest. “Pastor Manders!” He indicated the rector.
Neither Father Henaghan nor Mr. Jackson had ever read “Ghosts,” which was fortunate. If they had they might have resented the name which the doctor imposed on them. Apparently, the sailor did not know the play either. “Manders” seemed to mean no more to him than “Pastor” did.
“There’s no use our standing here all evening,” said Father Henaghan. “You told me to look pleasant, and I have—I haven’t looked so pleasant for a long time—but I don’t see that any good is likely to come of it.”
“Come on,” said the doctor. “I’ve done my best, and I can do no more. I’m inclined to think now that the man must be either a Laplander or an Esquimaux. He’d have understood me if he’d been a Dane, a Swede, a Norwegian, or even a Finn.”
“I told you, as soon as ever I set eyes on him,” said the priest, “that he was out of his mind. My own belief is, doctor, that if you give him some sort of a soothing draught, and get him back into his right senses, he’ll turn out to be an Irishman. It’s what he looks like.”
Michael Geraghty, who had carted the injured sailor from the shipwreck, called on Dr. Whitty next day at breakfast-time.
“I hear,” he said, “that you had half the town up yesterday trying could they get a word out of that fellow that’s in the hospital with the broken leg.”
“I had. We spoke to him in every language in Europe, and I’m bothered if I know what country he belongs to at all. There wasn’t one of us he’d answer.”
“Did you think of trying him with the Irish?”