“Then I don’t know what happened to me. Doctor Routh said I had a concussion of the brain and lost the sense of direction, but I lost my senses, anyhow. Have any of you fellows ever had that happen to you? It’s awfully queer?” “I have,” said Bright. “I know--you’re all right, but you can’t tell where you’re going.” “Exactly--you can’t tell which is right and which is left. You recognize houses, but don’t know which way to turn to get to your own. I lost myself in New York. I’m glad I’ve had the experience, but I don’t want it again. Do you know where I found myself and got my direction again? Away down in Tompkins Square. It was ten o’clock, and I’d missed a dinner-party, and thought I should just have time to get home and dress, and go to the Assembly. But I wasn’t meant to. I was dazed and queer still, and it had been snowing for hours and I had no overcoat. I found a horse-car going up town and got on. There was nobody else on it but that prize-fighter chap, who turns out to have been Tom Shelton. It was nice and warm in the car, and I must have been pretty well fagged out, for I sat down at the upper end and dropped asleep without telling the conductor to wake me at my street. I never fell asleep in a horse-car before in my life, and didn’t expect to then. I don’t know what happened after that--at least not distinctly. They must have tried to wake me with kicks and screams, or something, for I remember hitting out, and then a struggle, and I was pitched out into the snow by the conductor and the prize-fighter. Of course I jumped up and made for the fighting man, and I remember hearing something about a fair fight, and then a lot of men came running up with lanterns, and I was squaring up to Tom Shelton. I caught him one on the mouth, and I suppose that roused him. I can see that right-hand counter of his coming at me now, but I couldn’t stop it for the life of me--and that was the last I saw, until I opened my eyes in my own room and saw my mother looking at me. She sent for Doctor Routh, and he saw that I wasn’t going to die and went home, leaving everybody considerably relieved. But he wasn’t at all sure that I hadn’t been larking, when he first came, so he took the trouble to make a thorough examination. I wasn’t really hurt much, and though I’d had such a crack from Shelton, and the other one when I tumbled in the dark, I had pretty nearly an hour’s sleep in the horse-car as a set-off. Then my mother brought me things to eat--of course all the servants were in bed, and she’d rung for a messenger in order to send for Routh. And I sat up and wrote a long letter before I went to bed, though it wasn’t easy work, with my hand hurt and my head rather queer. I wish I hadn’t, though--it was more to show that I could, than anything else. There--I think I’ve told you the whole story. I’m sorry I couldn’t make it shorter.” “It wasn’t at all too long, Jack,” said Katharine, in clear and gentle tones.