Double Trouble | Page 4

faculties largely developed; may be said to be a man of strong
will-power end self-control. The following facts may be noted as
possibly symptomatic of neurasthenia; fondness for the poetry of
Whitman and Browning (see Nordau); tendency to dabble in irregular
systems of medical practice; pronounced nervous and emotional
irritability during adolescence; aversion to young women in society;
stubborn clinging to celibacy. In posture, gait and general movements,
the following may be noted: vivacious in conversation; possessed of
great mobility of facial expression; anteroposterior sway marked and
occasionally anterosinistral, and greatly augmented so as to approach
Romberg symptom on closure of eyes, but no ataxic evidences in
locomotion. Taking the external malleolus as the datum, the vertical
and lateral pedal oscillation----"
The editor regrets to say that space forbids any further incorporation of
Doctor Urquhart's very illuminating note at this place. It may appear at
some time as a separate essay or volume.

II
THE RIDDLE OF RAIMENT AND DATES
From his eyne did the glamour of Faerie pass And the Rymour lay on
Eildon grass. He lay in the heather on Eildon Hill; He gazed on the
dour Scots sky his fill. His staff beside him was brash with rot; The
weed grew rank in his unthatch'd cot: "Syne gloaming yestreen, my

shepherd kind, What hath happ'd this cot we ruin'd find?" "Syne
gloaming yestreen, and years twice three, Hath wind and rain therein
made free; Ye sure will a stranger to Eildon be, And ye know not the
Rymour's in Faerie!" --The Trewe Tale of Trewe Thomas.
As Mr. Amidon sensed the forward movement of the train in which he
so strangely found himself, he had fits of impulse to leap out and take
the next train back. But, back where? He had the assurance of his
colored friend and brother that forward was New York. Backward was
the void conjectural. Slowly the dawn whitened at the window. He
raised the curtain and saw the rocks and fences and snow of a winter's
landscape--saw them with a shock which, lying prone as he was, gave
him the sensation of staggering. It was true, then: the thing he had still
suspected as a nightmare was true. Where were all the weeks of
summer and autumn? And (question of some pertinency!) where was
Florian Amidon?
He groped about for his clothes. They were strange in color and texture,
but, in such judgment as he could form while dressing in his berth, they
fitted. He never could bear to go half-dressed to the toilet-room as most
men do, and stepped out of his berth fully appareled--in a natty
business sack-suit of Scots-gray, a high turn-down collar, fine enamel
shoes and a rather noticeable tie. Florian Amidon had always worn a
decent buttoned-up frock and a polka-dot cravat of modest blue, which
his haberdasher kept in stock especially for him. He felt as if, in getting
lost, he had got into the clothes of some other man--and that other one
of much less quiet and old-fashioned tastes in dress. It made him feel as
if it were he who had made the run to Canada with the bank's
funds--furtive, disguised, slinking.
He looked in the pockets of the coat like an amateur pickpocket, and
found some letters. He gazed at them askance, turning them over and
over, wondering if he ought to peep at their contents. Then he put them
back, and went into the smoking-room, where, finding himself alone,
he turned up his vest as if it had been worn by somebody else whom he
was afraid of disturbing, and looked at the initials on the shirt-front.
They were not "F. A.," as they ought to have been, but "E. B."! He

wondered which of the bags were his. Pressing the button, he
summoned the porter.
"George," said he, "bring my luggage in here."
And then he wondered at his addressing the porter in that drummer-like
way--he was already acting up to the smart suit--or down; he was in
doubt as to which it was.
The bags, when produced, showed those metal slides, sometimes seen,
concealing the owner's name. Sweat stood on Florian's brow as he
slipped the plate back and found the name of Eugene Brassfield,
Bellevale, Pennsylvania! A card-case, his pocketbook, all his linen and
his hat--all articles of expensive and gentlemanly quality, but strange to
him--disclosed the same name or initials, none of them his own. In the
valise he found some business letterheads, finely engraved, of the
Brassfield Oil Company, and Eugene Brassfield's name was there set
forth as president and general manager.
"Great heaven!" exclaimed Florian, "am I insane? Am I a robber and a
murderer? During this time which has dropped out of my life, have I
destroyed and despoiled this gentleman, and--and run off in