But now the matter had recurred
to him at all he felt so sure that it was the note that he
immediately went down to Hertfordshire, where his aunt was still
living, and asked, to the surprise of every one, to be allowed to
wash his hands in the room he had occupied as a child. He was told
that there were friends staying in the house who had the room at
present, but, on his saying he had a reason and particularly begging
to be allowed to remain alone a little while in this room, he was
taken upstairs and left there.
He went to the bed, lifted up the chintz which then covered the
frame, and found his old friend the hole. A nut had been supplied
and he could no longer get his finger into it. He rang the bell and
when the servant came asked for a bed-key. All this time he was
rapidly acquiring the reputation of being a lunatic throughout the
whole house, but the key was brought, and by the help of it he got
the nut off. When he had done so, there, sure enough, by dint of
picking with his pocket-knife, he found the missing five-pound note.
See how the return of a given present brings back the presents that
have been associated with it.
Unconscious Association
One morning I was whistling to myself the air "In Sweetest Harmony"
from Saul. Jones heard me and said:
"Do you know why you are whistling that?"
I said I did not.
Then he said: "Did you not hear me, two minutes ago, whistling
'Eagles were not so Swift'?"
I had not noticed his doing so, and it was so long since I had played
that chorus myself that I doubt whether I should have consciously
recognised it.
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