again want it. It was not the court dress that had been provided
for him on the occasion of his visit to the king and queen, but the
everyday clothing that he had been ordered to wear when he was put in
prison, though his English coat, waistcoat, and trousers had been allowed
to remain in his own possession. These, I had seen from his book, had
been presented by him to the queen (with the exception of two buttons,
which he had given to Yram as a keepsake), and had been preserved by her
displayed upon a wooden dummy. The dress in which he escaped had been
soiled during the hours that he and my mother had been in the sea, and
had also suffered from neglect during the years of his poverty; but he
wished to pass himself off as a common peasant or working-man, so he
preferred to have it set in order as might best be done, rather than
copied.

So cautious was he in the matter of dress that he took with him the boots
he had worn on leaving Erewhon, lest the foreign make of his English
boots should arouse suspicion. They were nearly new, and when he had had
them softened and well greased, he found he could still wear them quite
comfortably.

But to return. He reached home late at night one day at the beginning of
February, and a glance was enough to show that he was an altered man.
"What is the matter?" said I, shocked at his appearance. "Did you go to
Erewhon, and were you ill-treated there?"

"I went to Erewhon," he said, "and I was not ill-treated there, but I
have been so shaken that I fear I shall quite lose my reason. Do not ask
me more now. I will tell you about it all to-morrow. Let me have
something to eat, and go to bed."

When we met at breakfast next morning, he greeted me with all his usual
warmth of affection, but he was still taciturn. "I will begin to tell
you about it," he said, "after breakfast. Where is your dear mother? How
was it that I have . . . "

Then of a sudden his memory returned, and he burst into tears.

I now saw, to my horror, that his mind was gone. When he recovered, he
said: "It has all come back again, but at times now I am a blank, and
every week am more and more so. I daresay I shall be sensible now for
several hours. We will go into the study after breakfast, and I will
talk to you as long as I can do so."

Let the reader spare me, and let me spare the reader any description of
what we both of us felt.

When we were in the study, my father said, "My dearest boy, get