"Cut your throat! why, that would kill you."

"Not the way you done it. Well, sir, you ain't the man you was, that is
clear; but you was a good friend to me, and there's my hand."

"Thank you, Dick," said Staines, and took his hand. "I don't remember
YOU. Perhaps you are one of the past. The past is dead wall to me--a
dark dead wall," and he put his hands to his head with a look of
distress.

Everybody there now suspected the truth, and some pointed mysteriously
to their own heads.

Phoebe whispered an inquiry to the sick person.

He said a little pettishly, "All I know is, he is the kindest attendant
in the ward, and very attentive."

"Oh, then, he is in the public hospital."

"Of course he is."

The invalid, with the selfishness of his class, then begged Staines to
take him out of all this bustle down to the beach. Staines complied at
once, with the utmost meekness, and said, "Good-by, old friends; forgive
me for not remembering you. It is my great affliction that the past
is gone from me--gone, gone." And he went sadly away, drawing his sick
charge like a patient mule.