Forrester pulled at his chin with an air of abstraction. “I don’t really know,” he answered frankly. “The action is almost as if some electrical matter in the patient had been jarred by an electrical shock, and when the high frequency got control, it put things back into shape. Readjusted the parts, as it were. I don’t believe at all that the shock of seeing the battleship go down did the whole mischief. There was something else, something decidedly out of the common, mixed up in the case.” As we waited, I telephoned the office, and found the chief still there. “Victory is in sight,” I said. “Save as many columns as you can.” “You can have all you want,” came back over the wire. I asked for a desk, and began to write. I sketched the scene in the War Department, quoted the entire message from the man who was trying to stop all war, reviewed briefly what was known of the ship and of her disappearance, and told of our search down the coast, and of the finding of the man upstairs. Hour after hour went by as I wrote, and no call came. Dorothy and Tom sat reading. At last I brought my story down to the point where I wished to introduce the story of the man. There I stopped, and with idle pen sat and watched the beautiful head below the shaded light. If a man could only sit and see that “Picture of a woman reading” every night! I found myself figuring costs of living more zealously than ever before. A knock broke in on my thoughts. “The patient has roused,” said the nurse, “and the doctor would like to have you come.” Silently we passed through the bare corridors and up the wide stairs. As we entered, the doctor sat beside the man on the narrow iron bed. I looked with eager inquiry at the face. It shone with normal intelligence. We had conquered again. “I have just been telling Mr. Joslinn of your finding him, and of his being here,” said Forrester. “Now he is ready to talk.” Dorothy greeted him and began the talk, while I wrote feverishly as Joslinn spoke in a low steady tone. Yes, he had gone out fishing. He had left a little shooting box, whither he had run down alone on Monday, and taken the knockabout out. The reason no one had known of his disappearance was that there was no one to care. He had no family and had retired from business, made little trips now and then, so his landlady and friends simply thought of him as away. I chafed at the time that he took in coming to the point. If he only reached it, his long description of his acts was all a part of the story. Then came the crisis: “I was out ten or twelve miles from shore, just about sunset,” said Joslinn, “when I saw a battleship coming up the coast. She was the only ship in sight, and she passed within a short distance of me, so near that I felt the last of her wake. I never saw a finer spectacle than that boat as she swept on.” He paused. “Go on, go on,” I said anxiously.