The doctor, as he ran back the right-arm sleeve, uttered an exclamation. "Why, my dear sir," cried he, "here we have it! What more can we want?"—and pointed at the arm. And Sally said, as though relieved: "He's got his name written on him plain enough, anyhow!" Her mother gave a sigh of relief, or something like it, and said, "Yes." The patient himself seemed quite as much perplexed as pleased at the discovery, saying only, in a subdued way: "It must be my name." But he did not seem to accept at all readily the name tattooed on his arm: "A. Fenwick, 1878."
"Whose name can it be if it is not yours?" said Mrs. Nightingale. She fixed her eyes on his face, as though to watch his effort
of memory. "Try and think." But the doctor protested.
"Don't do anything of the sort," said he. "It's very bad for him, Mrs. Nightingale. He mustn't think. Just let him rest."
The patient, however, could not resign himself without a struggle to this state of anonymous ambiguity. His bewilderment was painful to witness. "If it were my name," he said, speaking slowly and not very clearly, "surely it would bring back the first name. I try to recall the word, and the effort is painful, and doesn't succeed." His hostess seemed much interested, even to the extent of ignoring the doctor's injunctions.
"Very curious! If you heard the name now, would you recollect it?"
"I wish you wouldn't try these experiments," says the doctor. "They won't do him any good. Rest's the thing."
"I think I would rather try," says Fenwick, as we may now call him. "I will be quiet if I can get this right."
Mrs. Nightingale begins repeating names that begin with A. "Alfred, Augustus, Arthur, Andrew, Algernon——"
Fenwick's face brightens. "That's it!" says he. "Algernon. I knew it quite well all the time, of course. But I couldn't—couldn't.... However, I don't feel that I shall make myself understood."