Harry Dee: Or Working it Out

I HOPE the reader may not be bored; but I find it necessary to begin my story with a great deal about my insignificant self. I am not the hero; and yet, owing to a strange run of circumstances, am so wrapped up with the characters and events which are to figure in my narrative that I find it impossible to make any sort of a beginning without telling somewhat of my own early history.


And, to begin with, the reader must know that when still a very small boy I succeeded in throwing my father and mother into a state of terror by an extraordinary piece of conduct. One night my mother, who had a habit of stealing to my little bed to tuck me in securely and repeat her goodnight kiss, found my bed empty. Not a little startled, she instituted a diligent search, and to her horror discovered me walking, fast asleep, up and down our garden walk.


Of course the family doctor was called in at once. He asked me all sorts of questions and made me so nervous that I put an end to the examination by bursting into tears.


“Madam,” he at length said in grave tones to my mother, “you needn’t be at all alarmed at Harry’s somnambulistic propensities; he’ll probably grow out of them. It’s a—in fact, it’s an idiosyncrasy.”


For which he charged the usual fee.


The doctor’s learned opinion of my case was on the point of bringing my distress to a climax, when my father led me from the room, and informed me that “somnambulistic propensities” merely meant that I had a tendency to walk in my sleep, and that its being an idiosyncrasy of mine was another way of saying that it was very odd on my part to do so.


“But,” added my father, “you needn’t bother about it. Some people snore in their sleep; others talk in their sleep; that’s the sort of idiosyncrasy they have. Yours is to walk.”