“But Jerry—­”

“Mum’s the word,” he whispered.  “That’s not my name down here.”

“Yes, I know,” I smiled.  “I’ve seen it in the papers.”

“Oh!  You saw that?  And guessed?” he grinned.  Then gave some word to the Scoutmaster and led me to his office—­a small room beside the entrance at the front of the building—­and closed the door.  In this better light I had the opportunity to examine him at my leisure while he talked.  He was a little thinner in face and body, but not spare or lean.  There were no shadows in his eyes, which were finely lighted by his new enthusiasm.  The new fire had burned out the old.  He was splendid with happiness.

“Oh!  You’ve no idea of the fun I’m getting out of the thing, Roger.  It’s simply great!  These boys are fine to work with.  They only need a chance.  I’ve got several hundred of ’em lined up already, all nationalities ready for the melting-pot—­Jews, Italians, Irish, all religions.  I’ve got the families lined up, too, been to see ’em all personally.  Rough lot, some of ’em—­and dirty!  Why, Roger, I never knew there was so much filth in all the world.  I’m starting to clean up the boys, inside and out, getting them jobs and keeping the idle ones off the streets.  Oh!  It’s going to take time, but we’re going to get there in the end.  You’ve seen the new building?  Isn’t it a corker?  I haven’t been idle, have I?”

“But how on earth,” I asked, “have you managed to preserve your anonymity?”

“Oh, I keep pretty dark.  I don’t go uptown at all.  I made a visit one night to Ballard Senior and made a clean breast of things and at last he gave in.  You see he had given me up as an office possibility.  In three years, you know, I’ll come in—­to all the money.  In the meanwhile we’ve fixed things up to provide for our immediate needs down here.”

“Ours?” I queried with a smile.  He colored ever so slightly but went on unperturbed.

“Yes, you know Una’s helping me.  I couldn’t have done a thing without Una.  Her experience in dealing with these people has been simply invaluable.  I thought—­” he stopped to laugh—­“I thought that all I had to do was just to spend the money and everything would work out all right.  I made a lot of mistakes with these families at first, did a lot of harm in a way, offending the proud ones, spoiling the weak ones and all that, but I’ve learned a lot since I’ve been down here.  We’ve devised a plan—­a scientific one.  It’s really beautiful how it works.  We’re going to make these boys all self-supporting and give ’em an education at the same time:  manual training, industrial art and science and all the rest of it.  Here! you must go over the building with me.  I’ve got just half an hour.”

He snatched up his cap and we went around the corner, going over the building from cellar to roof, Jerry explaining breathlessly and I listening, wondering whether to be most astonished at the extraordinary change in his mode of thought or at the initiative which could have planned and executed so great a project.  He spoke of Una constantly, “Una wanted this,” or “Una suggested that,” or “We had an awful row over the location of this thing, but Una was right.”  And then as an afterthought, “But then, she almost always is.”