going to lug it out. And then, my boy, with any luck at all, he'll very soon be able to answer you any question you like to put him. Speech and memory will return at the moment the pressure on the brain ceases."
"Will he remember up to the time the bullet hit him, or since, or both?" asked Strong.
"All his life, up to the moment the bullet hit him, certainly," was the reply. "What happened since will, at first, be remembered as a dream, probably. If I had to prophesy I should say he'd take up his life from the second in which the bullet hit him, and think, for the moment, that he is still where it happened. By-and-by, he'll realise that there's a gap somewhere, and gradually he'll be able to fill it in with events which will seem half nightmare, half real."
"Anyhow, he'll be certain of his identity and personal history and so forth?" asked Strong.
"Absolutely," said the surgeon. "It will be precisely as though he awoke from an ordinary night's rest. … It'll be awfully interesting to hear him give an account of himself. … All this, of course, if he doesn't die under the operation."
"I hope he will," said Strong.
"What do you mean, my dear chap?"
"I hope he'll die under the operation."
"Why?"
"He'll be better dead. … And it will be better for three other people that he should be dead. … Is he likely to die?"
"I should say it's ten to one he'll pull through all right. … What's it all about, Strong?"
"Look here, old chap," was the earnest reply.
