'Here is my card.'

At first he said nothing, but then he spoke. His voice was very strange, but I listened to him carefully, and I could understand him.

'The steps were very difficult,' he said. 'But most things are difficult for me.'

'Yes,' I said. 'Nothing is easy for you, is it?'

'No,' he said. He was very quiet for a minute. Then he said, 'Who are you, sir?'

'Who am I? Oh, I'm sorry. My name is Dr Treves. Here, this is my card.'

I gave him a card with my name on. Then I thought, 'That was no good. This man can't read.' But Merrick took the card and looked at it very carefully. Then he put it in his trousers pocket.

I did not talk to him very much at the hospital. I looked at his head and arms and legs and body very carefully. Then I wrote the important things about him in a little book. A nurse helped me. Merrick looked at her sometimes, but she did not smile at him or talk to him. I think she was afraid of him. I think Merrick was afraid too, because he was very quiet.

At four o'clock I took him back to the shop in a cab.

The next day I looked in the shop window again, but the picture was not there.

Chapter 3: A letter to 'The Times'

I did not see Merrick again for two years. Then, one day, the police found him. He had my card in his hand, so they brought him to the London Hospital. He was very tired, hungry, and dirty, so I put him to bed in a quiet little room. But he could not stay at the hospital. He was not ill, and of course the beds in the hospital are for ill people. We have no beds for hungry people, or ugly people.

One day the police brought Merrick to the hospital.

I told the Hospital Chairman, Mr Carr Gomm, about Merrick. He listened carefully, and then he wrote a letter to the editor of The Times newspaper.

From The Times, December 4th, 1886

A Letter to the Editor

Dear Sir,

I am writing to you about a man in our hospital. He needs your help. His name is Joseph Merrick, and he is 27 years old. He is not ill, but he cannot go out of the hospital because he is very, very ugly. Nobody likes to look at him, and some people are afraid of him. We call him the 'Elephant Man'.

Two years ago, Merrick lived in a shop near the London Hospital. For two pence, people could see him and laugh at him. One day Dr Frederick Treves - a hospital doctor - saw Merrick, brought him to this hospital, and looked at him carefully. Dr Treves could not help Merrick, but he gave him his card.