Page:Cy Warman--The express messenger and other tales of the rail.djvu/66

54 The attendant was about to reply when the surgeon, entering, gave sign for the man to be quiet. "Restless," said the doctor, taking the patient's hand, and the sick man caught at the word, the meaning of which his wreck of a mind scarcely comprehended, and repeated: "Reslis—Oscar Reslis—that's a nice-sounding name."

"Yes," said the surgeon, deciding to let it go at that; "Oscar Reslis is a very pretty name."

The physical condition of the patient improved rapidly enough now, but his mental condition continued to puzzle the chief surgeon and his staff. He was quiet enough, and seemed anxious to be alone—away from the other patients and the attendants. He would sit for hours thinking, thinking, hard and long, upon the great problem of life, and trying to make out how he came to be. The attendants had been instructed to keep a close watch upon the sick man, and this, as his reasoning powers returned, Hansen detected. "Why do you follow me all the while?" he asked of his German keeper one day, when the latter had trailed him down in the garden.