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'Can't speak - is that it?' said the doctor.
'Yes, that's it,' said William, forgetting his role for the minute.
'Well - open your mouth, and let's have a look at your throat,' said the doctor.
William opened his mouth and revealed his throat. The doctor inspected the recess of that healthy and powerful organ.
'I see,' he said at last. 'Yes, very bad. But I can operate here and now, fortunately. I'm afraid I can't give any anaesthetic in this case, and I'm afraid it will be rather painful - but I'm sure he's a brave boy.'
William went pale and looked around desperately, French verbs were preferable to this.
'I'll wait just three minutes,' said the doctor kindly.'Occasionally in cases like this the patient recovers his voice quite suddenly.' He took out his watch. William's father was watching the scene with an air of enjoyment that William found maddening. 'I'll give him just three minutes,' went on the doctor, 'and if the patient hasn't recovered the power of speech by then, I'll operate-'
The patient decided hastily to recover the power of speech.
'I can speak now,' he said with an air of surprise. Isn't it funny? I can talk quite ordinary now. It came on quite sudden'.
'No pain anywhere?' said the doctor.
'No,' said the patient quickly.
The patient father stepped forward.
'Then you'd better get up as soon as quickly as you can,' he said. 'You'll be late for school, but doubtless the'll know how to deal with that.'
They did know how to deal with that. They knew, too, how to deal with William complete ignorance on the subject of French verbs. Excuses (and William had many - some of them richly ingenious) were of no avail. He went home to lunch embittered and disillusioned with life.
'You'd think knowin' how to work a motor engine'd be more useful than savin'French verbs,'he said. 'S'pose I turned out to be an engineer - well, wot use'd French verbs to me'n I'd have to know how to work a motor engine. An' I was so ill this morning' that the doctor wanted to operate on me, but I said I can't miss school an' get all behind the others, an' I came, awfull ill, an' all they did was to to carry on something terrible 'cause I was jus' a minute or two late an' jus' ha'n't had time to do those old French verbs that aren't no use to anyone - '
Ginger, Henry and Douglas sympathised with him for some time, then begun to discuss (...)"

E pronto, fico por aqui. A história continua, claro. Achei graça partilhá-la, estas histórias são (ou foram) as minhas fontes e continuam sendo a minha terapia. Quantos de nós não fizemos já isto? Não com um motor eléctrico, imagino mas com um filme na televisão, um livro na cama, um jogo de computador, uma conversa seja lá onde for.