“Preposterous!  It hasn’t come out, the newspapers—­”

“They’re full enough of it as it is.  Jerry’s opponent is a very prominent pug—­an aspirant for the heavyweight title, no less a one than Jack Clancy, otherwise known as ’The Terrible Sailor, Champion of the Navy.’”

“But your father—­the public—!  It will ruin Jerry—­ruin him—­”

“Wait a bit.  Fortunately Jerry’s anonymity has been carefully kept.  At Flynn’s gymnasium he’s called Jim Robinson, and it’s as Jim Robinson, Flynn’s wonderful unknown, that he will make his public appearance.”

“But a name is a slender thread to hang Jerry’s whole reputation on.  He’ll be recognized, of course.  This thing can’t go on.  It must be stopped at once,” I cried.

“Exactly,” said Ballard coolly over his coffee cup.  “But how?”

“An appeal to the boy’s reason.  He must be insane to do such a thing.  It’s Flynn who’s put him up to this.”

“I think not.  If I understand Jerry correctly, he urged Flynn to make the match.  He’s quite keen about it.”

I paced the floor in some bewilderment, trying to think of a reason for Jerry’s strange behavior, but curiously enough the real one did not come to me.

“I can’t imagine how such an ambition could have got into his head,” I muttered.

Ballard struck a match for his cigarette and smiled.

“The nice balance of Jerry’s cosmos between the purely physical and the merely mental has been disturbed—­that’s all.  Liberty has become license and has gone into his muscles.  What shall we do about it?  Flatly, I don’t know.  That’s what I asked you down to discuss.”

I took a turn or two up and down the room.

“Your father—­the executors—­know nothing of this?”

“Phew!  I should say not!”

“They could stop it, I suppose.”

“I’m not so sure,” he said quietly.  “If the boy has made up his mind.”

I sank in a chair, trying to think.

“The executors mustn’t know.  Jack.  We’ll keep the thing quiet.  We’ve got to appeal to Jerry.”

“That’s precisely the conclusion I’ve reached myself.  I’ve asked him to come this morning.  He may be in at any moment.”

I looked out of the window thoughtfully toward the distant Jersey shore.

“This isn’t like Jerry.  He’s a fine athlete and a good sportsman—­for the fun he gets out of the thing.  But he has too good a mind not to be above the personal vulgarity of such an exhibition as this.  His finer instincts, his natural modesty, his lack of vanity—­everything that we know of the boy contradicts the notion of a personal incentive for this wild plan.  Does he know what he’s doing—­what it means—­the publicity—?”

“He thinks he’s dodging that.  Nobody knows him in New York except a few fellows at the clubs, he says.”

“But has he no consideration for us—­for me?” I cried.