He held out one arm and looked at the sleeve, then down at the legs of the trousers, as if they were something new to him.
“Hadn’t we better go down to the tailor’s and get your new ones?” Kit asked. “They must be done by this time, and you will have to try them on.”
He looked at the surgeon as he spoke, and the surgeon gave him an approving nod, as if to say, “Yes, humor him as much as you can.”
“Yes, we will go and get the new ones,” Mr. Silburn answered. “I don’t like these gray ones at all.”
“In just a minute, father,” Kit said. “I want to run into the house a minute first.”
The surgeon took the hint and followed him in, for he saw that Kit desired to speak to him.
“Perhaps it will make him feel more like himself to have the kind of clothes he is accustomed to—a dark blue suit,” he suggested. “If you think best I will take him out to a tailor’s to buy some. And he would like to have his hair and beard trimmed in the old way, I am sure.”
“Yes, the more you can make him look like his old self, the better,” the surgeon assented. “He is doing famously. Don’t contradict him in anything. Just let him take his own way as he has been doing, and it will not be long before he will discover that there has been some change in his surroundings. Then he will begin to ask questions, and you can tell him what has happened.
“I advise you to bring him back here,” the surgeon continued, “at least for a few days. It would not be well to make everything too strange for him at first. We will give you a room here with two beds, so that you can stay with him. By the time you get back from your walk you may find a great improvement in him; I can see that having you with him makes him feel happier.”
When the two Christopher Silburns started down the street for the tailor’s, the consul went with them, for he was very much interested in the strange case; and it was not long before the patient was arrayed in a dark blue suit, with a new derby hat; and after his hair and beard had been trimmed to the way he was accustomed to wear them, he looked so much like the old Christopher Silburn that Kit could hardly help dancing around him for joy. But he held himself in, and made no demonstrations. It was evident that his father was very much pleased, too, with the change in his appearance; he admired himself in the mirror, drew himself up till the stoop was gone from his shoulders, and was very particular to have the new hat on straight. It was nothing but the truth when the consul said that he looked like a new man.