“I doubt if he noticed it,” said honest Jim.

“Oh, no!” she cried.

“What’s the trouble?”

“I’m almost sure people notice it when I bow to them.”

“Oh, I see!” said Jim.  “Of course they would ordinarily, but Bibbs is funny.”

“Is he?  How?” she asked.  “He strikes me as anything but funny.”

“Well, I’m his brother,” Jim said, deprecatingly, “but I don’t know what he’s like, and, to tell the truth, I’ve never felt exactly like I was his brother, the way I do Roscoe.  Bibbs never did seem more than half alive to me.  Of course Roscoe and I are older, and when we were boys we were too big to play with him, but he never played anyway, with boys his own age.  He’d rather just sit in the house and mope around by himself.  Nobody could ever get him to do anything; you can’t get him to do anything now.  He never had any life in him; and honestly, if he is my brother, I must say I believe Bibbs Sheridan is the laziest man God ever made!  Father put him in the machine-shop over at the Pump Works—­best thing in the world for him—­and he was just plain no account.  It made him sick!  If he’d had the right kind of energy—­the kind father’s got, for instance, or Roscoe, either—­ why, it wouldn’t have made him sick.  And suppose it was either of them—­yes, or me, either—­do you think any of us would have stopped if we were sick?  Not much!  I hate to say it, but Bibbs Sheridan’ll never amount to anything as long as he lives.”

Mary looked thoughtful.  “Is there any particular reason why he should?” she asked.

“Good gracious!” he exclaimed.  “You don’t mean that, do you?  Don’t you believe in a man’s knowing how to earn his salt, no matter how much money his father’s got?  Hasn’t the business of this world got to be carried on by everybody in it?  Are we going to lay back on what we’ve got and see other fellows get ahead of us?  If we’ve got big things already, isn’t it every man’s business to go ahead and make ’em bigger?  Isn’t it his duty?  Don’t we always want to get bigger and bigger?”

“Ye-es—­I don’t know.  But I feel rather sorry for your brother.  He looked so lonely—­and sick.”

“He’s gettin’ better every day,” Jim said.  “Dr. Gurney says so.  There’s nothing much the matter with him, really—­it’s nine-tenths imaginary.  ‘Nerves’!  People that are willing to be busy don’t have nervous diseases, because they don’t have time to imagine ’em.”

“You mean his trouble is really mental?”

“Oh, he’s not a lunatic,” said Jim.  “He’s just queer.  Sometimes he’ll say something right bright, but half the time what he says is ’way off the subject, or else there isn’t any sense to it at all.  For instance, the other day I heard him talkin’ to one of the darkies in the hall.  The darky asked him what time he wanted the car for his drive, and anybody else in the world would have just said what time they