'I looked at them, feeling pretty puzzled. There was no doubt they believed what they said. Jim was in dead earnest and a bit worried. Ada was more worried; she showed all that maternal solicitude which so oddly hopes that its child will be outstanding while being absolutely normal, distinguished while being indistinguishable.
'I was at a loss for a reply. In my mind I was searching for a set of circumstances which could possibly produce the appearance of what they believed to have happened, and I could not find one at the moment. There floated into my mind the memory of the child's curious humming as it lay in its perambulator, over three years ago now. Curiosity prompted me to ask.
' "Is Ted fond of music?"
' "Well, 'e can't play anything," Mrs. Filler said, "It's early days for that, ain't it? But 'e's often 'ummin' things, all sorts of tunes I never 'eard of."
'Jim was looking at me.
' "You don't believe it, Doctor? Not that 'e was really 'earin' the wireless without a set, I mean?"
' "Well, it takes a bit of swallowing you know, Jim. Would you believe it if you were in my position? There must be some explanation."
' "Oh, there's that, all right, but it'll be a queer one, not a trick one. I'll get t'lad down 'ere and you'll see."
'He left the room. We heard him clatter upstairs and then down again. He came in carrying young Ted in his arms and put him down in a chair. The little boy sat there, sleepy and perhaps a trifle pale, though he looked well enough otherwise.
' "Now, Ted, lad, tell t'doctor what's on t'National now."
' "Ain't it mended?" said Ted, eyeing the wireless set on the dresser.
' "Aye, it's all right. But you just tell 'im what's on t'National."
'Young Ted appeared to think for a moment, then:
' "Music," he said. "Loud music."
' " 'Ow does it go?" his father persisted.
'Ted began to hum a part of a march quite recognisably one of Sousa's, I think.
' "That's right, lad. Now you keep on 'ummin'," said Jim, and switched on the radio set.
'Nobody spoke while the set warmed up. The only sound was Ted humming his march with a fine martial air. Jim leaned over and turned the volume control. A march came flooding out of the speaker. It was the same tune exactly on the beat and in pitch with Ted's humming.
'I couldn't think of anything to say. I just sat staring at the child. Jim turned the volume control right down to nothing and reset the dial.
' "What's on Regional?" he asked his son.
' "People clappin'," said young Ted with the briefest pause. "Now there's two men talking."
' "Sayin' what?"
' "Good evening, cads," said young Ted, in a travestied drawl.
'Jim turned the knob. The weary-toned wit of the Western Brothers pervaded the room.
' "What else?" Jim asked, damping out again.
' "Lots of things. A man shouting very loud over there." Ted pointed to a corner of the room. He lapsed into a gabble which sounded like a vocal cartoon of German.
' "Try Berlin," I suggested to Jim.
' "That's 'im," said young Ted, between the bolts of impassioned rhetoric which leapt out at us.
'Jim gave it a few moments and then switched off.
' "Well, there it is, Doctor," he said.
'There, indeed, it was, unmistakably. And I was supposed to make something of it.
'I looked at the boy. He was not paying attention to us. There was an abstracted expression on his face, not vacant in the least, but preoccupied. As his father said:
'" 'Tain't no wonder 'e seems dreamy-like sometimes if 'e's got that goin' on in 'is head all the while."
' "Ted," I asked him, "do you hear that all the time?"
'He came out of his abstraction and looked at me.
' "Aye," he said, "when it's going."
'It occurred to me then for the first time that I had been thinking of him—and that he had behaved—as if he were quite twice his age or more.
' "Does it worry you?"
' "No," he said, a bit uncertainly, " 'cept at night, and when it's so loud I 'ave to look at it."
'He always used that queer hybrid of expression. He talked about "quiet" and "loud" and yet coupled them with "looking."
' "At night?" I asked.
' "Aye, it's loud then."
' "Always puts a tin box over 'is 'ead at nights, 'e does," his mother put in. "I've tried to stop 'im time and again. Doesn't seem natural, not to sleep with yer 'ead in a tin box, it doesn't. But 'e would 'ave it, and it does keep 'im quiet. 'Course, I didn't know about this 'ere. 'E just said it were noises and music, and I thought it were fancies."
'I remembered the tin bath of his babyhood.
' "Does the box stop it?" I asked him.
' "Middlin'," said young Ted.
'"Maybe," I said cautiously, 'we could stop it altogether at nights somehow. Would you like that?"
' "Aye."
' "Well, come here and let me have a look at you." His mother stretched out her hand and brought him over under the light.
'As I've told you there was nothing at all unusual about his appearance, it was just that of any normal little boy. With the story of the tin and the memory of Jim's description of him as he bent at the wireless set, I put my hands on his head and began to feel the structure. It wasn't long before I came on something decidedly unusual.
'On either side of the vault of the skull, about two inches above the temples, I found a round, soft spot about the size of a halfpenny. Hair grew on the spots as thickly as on the rest of the skull, but there was certainly no bone beneath, and the spots were situated with exact symmetry. The child winced involuntarily as my fingers touched them.
' "Does that hurt?" I asked him.
'His "no" sounded a little doubtful.
'I told him to close his eyes and then touched the lids with the tips of my fingers. It brought exactly the same wincing reaction. I was aware of a curiously excited feeling growing inside me. I had never heard of anything at all like this. It was unique. I parted the hair over the soft spots and looked closely. The skin was continuous and unbroken. There was nothing to see. Again I cautiously explored the spots with my fingers. The child did not like it. He dodged and broke away from me.
'I was aware of his parents looking at me expectantly, but I kept my eyes on young Ted. I was trying to control my own excitement. I think an astronomer who has found a new planet or an explorer who has discovered a new continent must have felt rather as I felt then. Unable to believe his own luck and busily cramming his imagination down with reason; seeking for a hold on the hard facts and their implications.
'I had an automatic desire to keep the child as unaware as possible of his singularity and an instinctive impulse to belittle its importance for his parents' benefit. The motives for that impulse were, I confess, mixed. In fact, I've never really been able to sort them out honestly yet. There was a professional desire not to be sensational, undoubtedly a jealous wish to keep the thing to myself for the time being until I could learn more about it, and probably a lot of others.
'His mother took the child upstairs again and I waited for her to come back before I said anything, then I was deliberately matter of fact.
' "It's unusual, most unusual," I told them, "but it's certainly not anything to be frightened about. It's an extra sensitivity which, I confess, I don't altogether understand at present, but we shall undoubtedly learn more about that from talking to him and watching him, now that we know what to look for. I'd like you to observe very closely all he does or says with reference to electricity and let me know in as much detail as you can. His general health appears to be perfectly good, but if you like I'll go over him thoroughly tomorrow.
' "One thing strikes me, and that is that perhaps he's not getting enough sleep, or not sleeping soundly when he does. We may be able to get over that by giving him a better shield than a tin box. About the rest of it, his being so forward for his age in the way he speaks and understands questions, and that kind of thing—I don't think you need worry either. It's rather soon to be definite about anything yet, but it does seem likely that if he has had this kind of thing going on all the time the constant stimulation may have forced his brain to develop abnormally fast. He doesn't laugh much, does he?"