First, they established Groener’s average or normal time of reply when there was no emotion or mental effort involved.  The judge said “milk” and Groener at once, by association of ideas, said “cream”; the judge said “smoke,” Groener replied “fire”; the judge said “early,” Groener said “late”; the judge said “water,” Groener answered “river”; the judge said “tobacco,” Groener answered “pipe.”  And the intervals varied from four fifths of a second to a second and a fifth, which was taken as the prisoner’s average time for the untroubled thought process.

“He’s clever!” reflected Coquenil.  “He’s establishing a slow average.”

Then began the real test, the judge going deliberately through the entire list which included thirty important words scattered among seventy unimportant ones.  The thirty important words were: 

1.  NOTRE DAME. 16.  DETECTIVE. 2.  EYEHOLE. 17.  BRAZIL. 3.  WATCHDOG. 18.  CANARY BIRD. 4.  PHOTOGRAPHER. 19.  ALICE. 5.  GUILLOTINE. 20.  RED SKY. 6.  CHAMPS ELYSEES. 21.  ASSASSIN. 7.  FALSE BEARD. 22.  BOOTS. 8.  BRUSSELS. 23.  MARY. 9.  GIBELIN. 24.  COACHING PARTY. 10.  SACRISTAN. 25.  JAPANESE PRINT. 11.  VILLA MONTMORENCY. 26.  CHARITY BAZAAR. 12.  RAOUL. 27.  FOOTPRINTS. 13.  DREAMS. 28.  MARGARET. 14.  AUGER. 29.  RED HAIR. 15.  JIU JITSU. 30.  FOURTH OF JULY.

They went through this list slowly, word by word, with everything carefully recorded, which took nearly an hour; then they turned back to the beginning and went through the list again, so that, to the hundred original words, Groener gave two sets of answering words, most of which proved to be the same, especially in the seventy unimportant words.  Thus both times he answered “darkness” for “light,” “tea” for “coffee,” “clock” for “watch,” and “handle” for “broom.”  There were a few exceptions as when he answered “salt” for “sugar” the first time and “sweet” for “sugar” the second time; almost always, however, his memory brought back, automatically, the same unimportant word at the second questioning that he had given at the first questioning.

It was different, however, with the important words, as Hauteville pointed out when the test was finished, in over half the cases the accused had answered different words in the two questionings.

“You made up your mind, Groener,” said the judge as he glanced over the sheets, “that you would answer the critical words within your average time of reply and you have done it, but you have betrayed yourself in another way, as I knew you would.  In your desire to answer quickly you repeatedly chose words that you would not have chosen if you had reflected longer; then, in going through the list a second time,