of country--that wall-to-screen marathon--and, with an eye upon his
nurse, meditated a further attempt. He put down his spoon, and felt his
bump. It was better; perchance there would be two bumps by the evening.
And then, suddenly, he remembered.... He felt again the terror, saw the
lights and his nurse, then that new friend.... He pondered, lifted his
spoon, waved it in the air; and then smiling with the happy recovery of
a pleasant, friendly sound, repeated half to himself, half to his nurse:
"Damn! Damn! Damn!"

That began for him the difficulties of his day. He was hustled, shaken;
words, words, words were poured down upon him. He understood that, in
some strange, unexpected, bewildering fashion he had done wrong. There
was nothing more puzzling in his present surroundings than that
amazingly sudden transition from serenity to danger. Here one was, warm
with food, bathed in sunlight, with a fine, ripe day in front of one....
Then the mere murmur of a sound, and all was tragedy.

He hated his toys, his nurse, his food, his world; he sat in a corner of
the room and glowered.... How was he to know? If, under direct
encouragement, he could be induced to say "dada," or "horse," or
"twain," he received nothing but applause and, often enough, reward.
Yet, let him make use of that pleasant new sound that he had learnt, and
he was in disgrace. Upon this day, more than any other in his young
life, he ached, he longed for some explanation. Then, sitting there in
his corner, there came to him a discovery, the force of which was never,
throughout all his later life, to leave him. He had been deserted by his
friend. His last link with that other life was broken. He was here,
planted in the strangest of strange places, with nothing whatever to
help him. He was alone; he must fight for his own hand. He would--from
that moment, seated there beneath the window, Ernest Henry Wilberforce