n recall the name of the
ill-fortuned ship, or any particulars about the accident. But what of
that?--he could readily fill in the hiatuses with his fabrication. He
failed entirely in the attempt to reproduce the story given him, and
used the talk about the _Titanic_ disaster as a subterfuge--as a ready
means of escape from the difficulty in which he found himself.

He himself threw some light upon the part played by his craving for
self-esteem in his statement: "When I tell of all these big things it
makes me feel that I'm a little above the common herd of negroes." He
unquestionably believes in these tales, if they are real enough to make
him feel above the common herd of negroes. His suggestibility was well
illustrated by the suggested river at Cambridge, "on the banks of which
he sat many a time during his student days."

The facility with which his imagination, his fantasy, works was
demonstrated by the "ink-blotch" test to which he was subjected. This
test, in brief, consists of a series of ink blotches which are shown the
patient, with the request to describe them as they appear to him. The
following are several of his replies: (1) "A woman sitting on a man,
seems like she's got a little weaving in her hand; a little stick,
sticking out from the weaving, seems like the man's elbow is sticking
out back of the shawl." (2) "It seems to me I have seen a volcano that
looks like that. I think it is a ship out at sea. I can see the
lifeboats lashed to the side, several ripples of water behind." (3) "A
figure of a woman with a hand purse or a disfigured arm near the wrist.
Her mouth is open and she is looking around. The wind carried her hat
off; she has a muff on her right hand. Seems like there is a neck-piece
around the muff."

Notice the detail with which he describes the blotches. In this one
ordinary speech seemed to have been insufficient to describe the blotch,
and he had to resort to a neologism. "Is that supposed to be a
'perpendicament'? It's got a head like a sea devil; the upper part seems
like a peacock trying to peck him in the back of the head."

There remains one other thing to be inquired into in this case, and that
is the history of epilepsy which accompanied the patient. He was never
observed in an epileptic seizure at the military post from which he came
to us, and no seizures were observed in this hospital. His own
statements concerning this are, like everything else he said, quite
totally unrel