The man swayed and toppled over inside the prison chamber,
and the door closed between him and his fleeing companions. Clearly
they were in too much haste to realize that they had left one of
their company behind.
The man sprang to his feet again and hammered and kicked furiously
at the door. Fisher's sense of humor began to recover from the
struggle and he sat up on his sofa with something of his native
nonchalance. But as he listened to the captive captor beating on the
door of the prison, a new and curious reflection came to him.
The natural course for a man thus wishing to attract his friends'
attention would be to call out, to shout as well as kick. This man
was making as much noise as he could with his feet and hands, but
not a sound came from his throat. Why couldn't he speak? At first he
thought the man might be gagged, which was manifestly absurd. Then
his fancy fell back on the ugly idea that the man was dumb. He
hardly knew why it was so ugly an idea, but it affected his
imagination in a dark and disproportionate fashion. There seemed to
be something creepy about the idea of being left in a dark room with
a deaf mute. It was almost as if such a defect were a deformity. It
was almost as if it went with other and worse deformities.
Pages:
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220