The Wonder Part 20

V

Altogether the Wonder spent five days, or about forty hours, on his study of the dictionary, and in the evening of his last day's work he left again by the open window. Challis, however, had been keeping him under fairly close observation, and knew that the preliminary task was finished.

"What can I give that child to read to-day?" he asked at breakfast next morning.

"I should reverse the arrangement; let him sit on the Dictionary and read the Encyclopaedia." Lewes always approached the subject of the Wonder with a certain supercilious contempt.

"You are not convinced yet that he isn't humbugging?"

"No! Frankly, I'm not."

"Well, well, we must wait for more evidence, before we argue about it,"

said Challis, but they sat on over the breakfast-table, waiting for the child to put in an appearance, and their conversation hovered over the topic of his intelligence.

"Half-past ten?" Challis e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed at last, with surprise. "We are getting into slack habits, Lewes." He rose and rang the bell.

"Apparently the Stott infant has had enough of it," suggested Lewes.

"Perhaps he has exhausted the interest of dictionary ill.u.s.trations."

"We shall see," replied Challis, and then to a deferentially appearing Heathcote he said: "Has Master Stott come this morning?"

"No, sir. Leastways, no one 'asn't let 'im in, sir."

"It may be that he is mentally collating the results of the past two days' reading," said Challis, as he and Lewes made their way to the library.

"Oh!" was all Lewes's reply, but it conveyed much of impatient contempt for his employer's att.i.tude.

Challis only smiled.

When they entered the library they found the Wonder hard at work, and he had, of his own initiative, adopted the plan ironically suggested by Lewes, for he had succeeded in transferring the Dictionary volumes to the chair, and he was deep in volume one, of the eleventh edition of the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_.

The library was never cleared up by any one except Challis or his deputy, but an early housemaid had been sent to dust, and she had left the cas.e.m.e.nt of one of the lower lights of the window open. The means of the Wonder's entrance was thus clearly in evidence.

"It's Napoleonic," murmured Challis.

"It's most infernal cheek," returned Lewes in a loud voice, "I should not be at all surprised if that promised shaking were not administered to-day."

The Wonder took no notice. Challis says that on that morning his eyes were travelling down the page at about the rate at which one could count the lines.

"He isn't reading," said Lewes. "No one could read as fast as that, and most certainly not a child of four and a half."

"If he would only answer questions ..." hesitated Challis.

"Oh! of course he won't do that," said Lewes. "He's clever enough not to give himself away."

The two men went over to the table and looked down over the child's shoulder. He was in the middle of the article on "Aberration"--a technical treatise on optical physics.

Lewes made a gesture. "Now do you believe he's humbugging?" he asked confidently, and made no effort to modulate his voice.

Challis drew his eyebrows together. "My boy," he said, and laid his hand lightly on Victor Stott's shoulder, "can you understand what you are reading there?"

But no answer was vouchsafed. Challis sighed. "Come along, Lewes," he said; "we must waste no more time."

Lewes wore a look of smug triumph as they went to the farther room, but he was clever enough to refrain from expressing his triumph in speech.

VI

Challis gave directions that the window which the Wonder had found to be his most convenient method of entry and exit should be kept open, except at night; and a stool was placed under the sill inside the room, and a low bench was fixed outside to facilitate the child's goings and comings. Also, a little path was made across the flower-bed.

The Wonder gave no trouble. He arrived at nine o'clock every morning, Sunday included, and left at a quarter to six in the evening. On wet days he was provided with a waterproof which had evidently been made by his mother out of a larger garment. This he took off when he entered the room and left on the stool under the window.

He was given a gla.s.s of milk and a plate of bread-and-b.u.t.ter at twelve o'clock; and except for this he demanded and received no attention.

For three weeks he devoted himself exclusively to the study of the Encyclopaedia.

Lewes was puzzled.

Challis spoke little of the child during these three weeks, but he often stood at the entrance to the farther rooms and watched the Wonder's eyes travelling so rapidly yet so intently down the page. That sight had a curious fascination for him; he returned to his own work by an effort, and an hour afterwards he would be back again at the door of the larger room. Sometimes Lewes would hear him mutter: "If he would only answer a few questions...." There was always one hope in Challis's mind. He hoped that some sort of climax might be reached when the Encyclopaedia was finished. The child must, at least, ask then for another book. Even if he chose one for himself, his choice might furnish some sort of a test.

So Challis waited and said little; and Lewes was puzzled, because he was beginning to doubt whether it were possible that the child could sustain a pose so long. That, in itself, would be evidence of extraordinary abnormality. Lewes fumbled in his mind for another hypothesis.

This reading craze may be symptomatic of some form of idiocy, he thought; "and I don't believe he does read," was his illogical deduction.

Mrs. Stott usually came to meet her son, and sometimes she would come early in the afternoon and stand at the window watching him at his work; but neither Challis nor Lewes ever saw the Wonder display by any sign that he was aware of his mother's presence.

During those three weeks the Wonder held himself completely detached from any intercourse with the world of men. At the end of that period he once more manifested his awareness of the human factor in existence.

Challis, if he spoke little to Lewes of the Wonder during this time, maintained a strict observation of the child's doings.

The Wonder began his last volume of the Encyclopaedia one Wednesday afternoon soon after lunch, and on Thursday morning, Challis was continually in and out of the room watching the child's progress, and noting his nearness to the end of the colossal task he had undertaken.

At a quarter to twelve he took up his old position in the doorway, and with his hands clasped behind his back he watched the reading of the last forty pages.

There was no slackening and no quickening in the Wonder's rate of progress. He read the articles under "Z" with the same attention he had given to the remainder of the work, and then, arrived at the last page, he closed the volume and took up the Index.

Challis suffered a qualm; not so much on account of the possible postponement of the crisis he was awaiting, as because he saw that the reading of the Index could only be taken as a sign that the whole study had been unintelligent. No one could conceivably have any purpose in reading through an index.

And at this moment Lewes joined him in the doorway.

"What volume has he got to now?" asked Lewes.

"The Index," returned Challis.

Lewes was no less quick in drawing his inference than Challis had been.

"Well, that settles it, I should think," was Lewes's comment.