Page:The achievements of Luther Trant - Balmer and MacHarg - 1910.djvu/352

320 letters—these typewritten letters, Mr. Trant?" cried Caryl incredulously.

"From those alone, Mr. Caryl," the psychologist smiled slightly, "through a most elementary, primer fact of psychology. Perhaps you would like to know, Lawler," Trant turned, still smiling, to the prisoner, "just wherein you failed. And, as you will probably never have another chance such as the one just past for putting the information to practical use—even if you were not, as Mr. Burns tells me, likely to retire for a number of years from active life—I am willing to tell you."

The prisoner turned on Trant his face—now grown livid—with an expression of almost superstitious questioning.

"Did you ever happen to go to a light opera with Howard Axton, Mr. Lawler," asked Trant, "and find after the performance that you remembered all the stage-settings of the piece but could not recall a tune—you know you cannot recall a tune, Lawler—while Axton, perhaps, could whistle all the tunes but could not remember a costume or a scene? Psychologists call that difference between you and Howard Axton a difference in 'memory types.' In an almost masterly manner you imitated the style, the tricks and turns of expression of Howard Axton in your letter to Miss Waldron describing the wreck—not quite so well in the statement you dictated in my office. But you could not imitate the primary difference of Howard Axton's mind from yours. That was where you failed.

"The change in the personality of the letter writer