istan lay a couple of
feet clear of the bed, then himself lay on the mattress face up,
prodding the patient over.

The examination concluded, he informed us that Tristan's symptoms were
simply those of a general physical shock such as would be expected in
the case of a man standing close to the center of an explosion, though
from our description of the affair he could not understand how my
brother had survived at all. The glimmering of an explanation of this
did not come until a long time afterward. So far as physical condition
was concerned, Tristan might expect to recover fully in a matter of
weeks. Mentally--the doctor was not so sure. The boy had gone through
a terrible experience, and one which was still continuing--might
continue no one knew how long. We were, said the doctor, up against a
trick played by the great Sphinx, Nature, and one which, so far as he
knew, had never before taken place in the history of all mankind.

"There is faintly taking shape in my mind," he said, "the beginning of
a theory as to how it came about. But it is a theory having many
ramifications and involving much in several lines of science, with
most of which I am but little acquainted. For the present I have no
more to say than that if a theory of causation can be worked out, it
will be the first step toward cure. But--it may be the only step.
Don't build hopes!"

Looking Alice and me over carefully, he gave us a each a nerve
sedative and departed, leaving us with the feeling that here was a man
of considerably wider learning than might be expected of a small-town
doctor. In point of fact, we learned that this was the case. The
specialist has been described as a "man who knows more and more about
less and less." In Dr. Grosnoff's mind, the "less and less" outweighed
the "more and more."

* * * * *

Tristan grew stronger physically; mentally, he was intelligent enough
to help us and himself by keeping his mind as much as possible off his
condition, sometimes by sheer force of will. Meantime, Dr. Grosnoff,
realizing that his patient could not be kept forever tied in bed, had
assisted me in preparing for his permanent care at home. The device
was simple; we had just taken his room, remodeled the ceiling as a
floor, and fitted it with furniture upside down. Most of the problems
involved in this were fairly simple. The matter of a bath rather
stumped us for a while, until we hit upon a shower. The jets c