"Oh." He nodded. "I see you've had results from your letter-writing." "Well, sort of." "I'm used to your circumlocutions, Pat. Suppose you come directly to the point for once. What happened?" "Why, I wrote Nick to get in touch with me, and I got a reply. He said to meet him in the park at a place we knew. This evening." "And you did, of course." "Yes, but before that, this afternoon, he called up and told me not to, but I insisted and we did." "Told you not to, eh? And was his warning justified?" "Yes. Oh, yes! When I came to the place, it was--the other." "So! Well, he could hardly manhandle you in a public park." Pat thought of her wrenched shoulder and bruised arm. She shuddered. "He's horrible!" she said. "Inhuman! He kept referring to Saturday night, and he threatened that if I moved or made a disturbance he'd let Nick suffer the consequences. So I kept still while he insulted me." "You nit-wit!" There was more than a trace of anger in the Doctor's voice. "I want to see that pup of yours! We'll soon find out what this thing is--a mania or simply lack of a good licking!" "What it is?" echoed Pat. "Oh--it told me! Dr. Carl, what's a synopsis?" "A synopsis! You know perfectly well." "I mean applied to physiology or psychology or something. It--he told me he was a question of synopsis." "This devil of yours said that?" "Yes." "Hum!" The Doctor's voice was musing. He frowned perplexedly, then looked up abruptly. "Was it--did he by any chance say synapses? Not synopsis--synapses?" "That's it!" exclaimed the girl. "He said he was a question of synapses. Does that explain him? Do you know what he is?" "Doesn't explain a damn thing!" snapped Horker. "A synapse is a juncture, or the meeting of two nerves. It's why you can develop automatic motions and habits, like playing piano, or dancing. When you form a habit, the synapses of the nerves involved are sort of worn thin, so the nerves themselves are, in a sense, short-circuited. You go through motions without the need of your brain intervening, which is all a habit amounts to. Understand?" "Not very well," confessed Pat. "Humph! It doesn't matter anyway. I can't see that it helps to analyze your devil." "I don't care if it's never analyzed," said Pat with a return of despondency. "Dr. Carl, I can't face that evil thing again. I can't do it, not even if it means never seeing Nick!" "Sensible," said the Doctor approvingly. "I'd like to have a chance at him, but not enough to keep you in this state of jitters. Although," he added, "a lot of this mystery is the product of your own harum-scarum mind. You can be sure of that, Honey." "You _would_ say so," responded the girl wearily. "You've never seen that--change. If it's my imagination, then I'm the one that needs your treatments, not Nick."