The Wonder Part 19

"Well, how are you getting on?" asked Challis.

The Wonder took not the least notice of the question, but he stretched out a little hand and took a biscuit and ate it, without looking up from his reading.

"I wish he'd answer questions," Challis remarked to Lewes, later.

"I should prescribe a sound shaking," returned Lewes.

Challis smiled. "Well, see here, Lewes," he said, "I'll take the responsibility; you go and experiment; go and shake him."

Lewes looked through the folding doors at the picture of the Wonder, intent on his study of the great dictionary. "Since you've franked me,"

he said, "I'll do it--but not now. I'll wait till he gives me some occasion."

"Good," replied Challis, "my offer holds ... and, by the way, I have no doubt that an occasion will present itself. Doesn't it strike you as likely, Lewes, that we shall see a good deal of the child here?"

They stood for some minutes, watching the picture of that intent student, framed in the written thoughts of his predecessors.

III

The Wonder ignored an invitation to lunch; he ignored, also, the tray that was sent in to him. He read on steadily till a quarter to six, by which time he was at the end of "B," and then he climbed down from his Encyclopaedia, and made for the door. Challis, working in the farther room, saw him and came out to open the door.

"Are you going now?" he asked.

The child nodded.

"I will order the cart for you, if you will wait ten minutes," said Challis.

The child shook his head. "It's very necessary to have air," he said.

Something in the tone and p.r.o.nunciation struck Challis, and awoke a long dormant memory. The sentence spoken, suddenly conjured up a vision of the Stotts' cottage at Stoke, of the Stotts at tea, of a cradle in the shadow, and of himself, sitting in an uncomfortable armchair and swinging his stick between his knees. When the child had gone--walking deliberately, and evidently regarding the mile-and-a-half walk through the twilight wood and over the deserted Common as a trivial incident in the day's business--Challis set himself to a.n.a.lyse that curious a.s.sociation.

As he strolled back across the hall to the library, he tried to reconstruct the scene of the cottage at Stoke, and to recall the outline of the conversation he had had with the Stotts.

"Lewes!" he said, when he reached the room in which his secretary was working. "Lewes, this is curious," and he described the a.s.sociations called up by the child's speech. "The curious thing is," he continued, "that I had gone to advise Mrs. Stott to take a cottage at Pym, because the Stoke villagers were hostile, in some way, and she did not care to take the child out in the street. It is more than probable that I used just those words, 'It is very necessary to have air,' very probable.

Now, what about my memory theory? The child was only six months old at that time."

Lewes appeared unconvinced. "There is nothing very unusual in the sentence," he said.

"Forgive me," replied Challis, "I don't agree with you. It is not phrased as a villager would phrase it, and, as I tell you, it was not spoken with the local accent."

"You may have spoken the sentence to-day," suggested Lewes.

"I may, of course, though I don't remember saying anything of the sort, but that would not account for the curiously vivid a.s.sociation which was conjured up."

Lewes pursed his lips. "No, no, no," he said. "But that is hardly ground for argument, is it?"

"I suppose not," returned Challis thoughtfully; "but when you take up psychology, Lewes, I should much like you to specialise on a careful inquiry into a.s.sociation in connection with memory. I feel certain that if one can reproduce, as nearly as may be, any complex sensation one has experienced, no matter how long ago, one will stimulate what I may call an abnormal memory of all the a.s.sociations connected with that experience. Just now I saw the interior of that room in the Stotts'

cottage so clearly that I had an image of a dreadful oleograph of Disraeli hanging on the wall. But, now, I cannot for the life of me remember whether there was such an oleograph or not. I do not remember noticing it at the time."

"Yes, that's very interesting," replied Lewes. "There is certainly a wide field for research in that direction."

"You might throw much light on our mental processes," replied Challis.

(It was as the outcome of this conversation that Gregory Lewes did, two years afterwards, take up this line of study. The only result up to the present time is his little brochure _Reflexive a.s.sociations_, which has added little to our knowledge of the subject.)

IV

Challis's antic.i.p.ation that he and Lewes would be greatly favoured by the Wonder's company was fully realised.

The child put in an appearance at half-past nine the next morning, just as the governess cart was starting out to fetch him. When he was admitted he went straight to the library, climbed on to the chair, upon which the volumes of the Encyclopaedia still remained, and continued his reading where he had left off on the previous evening.

He read steadily throughout the day without giving utterance to speech of any kind.

Challis and Lewes went out in the afternoon, and left the child deep in study. They came in at six o'clock, and went to the library. The Wonder, however, was not there.

Challis rang the bell.

"Has little Stott gone?" he asked when Heathcote came.

"I 'aven't seen 'im, sir," said Heathcote.

"Just find out if any one opened the door for him, will you?" said Challis. "He couldn't possibly have opened that door for himself."

"No one 'asn't let Master Stott hout, sir," Heathcote reported on his return.

"Are you sure?"

"Quite sure, sir. I've made full hinquiries," said Heathcote with dignity.

"Well, we'd better find him," said Challis.

"The window is open," suggested Lewes.

"He would hardly ..." began Challis, walking over to the low sill of the open window, but he broke off in his sentence and continued, "By Jove, he did, though; look here!"

It was, indeed, quite obvious that the Wonder had made his exit by the window; the tiny prints of his feet were clearly marked in the mould of the flower-bed; he had, moreover, disregarded all results of early spring floriculture.

"See how he has smashed those daffodils," said Lewes. "What an infernally cheeky little brute he is!"

"What interests me is the logic of the child," returned Challis. "I would venture to guess that he wasted no time in trying to attract attention. The door was closed, so he just got out of the window. I rather admire the spirit; there is something Napoleonic about him. Don't you think so?"

Lewes shrugged his shoulders. Heathcote's expression was quite non-committal.

"You'd better send Jessop up to Pym, Heathcote," said Challis. "Let him find out whether the child is safe at home."

Jessop reported an hour afterwards that Master Stott had arrived home quite safely, and Mrs. Stott was much obliged.